


"Why Did You Leave Them?"

by SwansQuill



Series: God is Dead (but not really) [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (and not just the main two), (or lack thereof), Agender Character, Alternate Ending, Amnesia, Angels, Angels Being Assholes (Good Omens), Angst, Antichrist Adam Young (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Live Together (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Met Before The Fall (Good Omens), Banter, Crowley can't drive, Fluff, Gen, God as a character, God is insecure, God may be dead, Idiots, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Insecurity, It started in a garden, M/M, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Post-Canon, Sorry Not Sorry, Tags Are Hard, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), like a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24399667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwansQuill/pseuds/SwansQuill
Summary: God's disappearance, of course, had ripples in Heaven and on Earth, and after a year Her daughter was able to quell most of them. But what no one knew about was the Almighty's secret plane, neither Heaven, Hell, nor Earth, where She spent most of Her time.In which Crowley runs over someone rather unexpected with the Bentley, and even God needs to learn to love Herself (or else the world as we know it may literally end).A sequel to the previous works in this series!
Relationships: Aziraphale & God (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & God (Good Omens), God & OC
Series: God is Dead (but not really) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663582
Kudos: 7





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, here is another product of my messed up, Good Omens oriented mind! This fic is best read about the previous works in this series, especially 'God is Dead (and we killed Her)' and 'Faithful Only He' - though the latter is a work in progress. But, I'm impatient! 
> 
> This is also a long chapter for me as well, but I couldn't find a nice point to break it off. And the next chapter is all about Aziraphale and Crowley, so I will make up for their absence here!
> 
> For those curious, the title is from Exodus 2:20, when Reuel, step-father of Moses, says, "Why did you leave him?" to his daughters. (And no, I did not know that before writing this, I searched up places where Biblical Reuels appeared on Wikipedia and only read those passages for quotes.) I chose the name for its meaning, "friend of God", as that is literally who the OC featured in this story is.
> 
> Enjoy!

They remembered where she lived; it was their first memory. The place was a garden, not unlike Eden (though they didn’t know what Eden was the first time they saw it), though somehow even more lush and verdant. And crowded; it was crowded and chaotic and neither they nor she ever bothered to tame it, nor wanted to for that matter. Vines overgrew the narrow footpaths, leaves crowded over their eyes, and light in the understory of much of the garden was nearly as scarce as it would have been in a true rainforest. After awhile, after they had learned of other gardens, they stopped calling it ‘the garden’, because it really did seem like more of a forest.

They loved walking through that forest, not so much tending to the plants (for they were, there was no doubting it, completely wild) as the plants were tending to them. They would walk down the shadowy paths, looking around them and petting plants’ leaves as the plants all reached out and stroked their face, checking to see if they were there and happy. And they would soothe and pet them, cooing lovingly and talking to them until she would joke that she should have named them Carmel, or garden, and they would scoff and join her inside the house. And then after they talked (for however long, neither of them kept track, and neither of them felt Time very acutely), they would go back and walk around the forest until she felt she wanted to talk again.

“Sometimes I feel like you would be quite fine without me here,” she said one day, very quiet, her face unreadable as her eyes trailed them. “What are you doing?”

“Looking at this hive.”

“It’s empty.”

“Yes,” they nodded, blinking up at her. “I smoked out all the bees.”

“Why?”

They smirked, quirking up an eyebrow. “I thought you knew everything.”

“Don’t tease me. If I knew everything, would I have asked you?” She frowned, and they nodded, noting the occasional downward swing in her mood. At least they knew she wouldn’t go kicking  _ them _ out of this garden, or dropping forty days of rain on them.

Shrugging, they stood up, sliding the two beehive halves carefully into a deep pocket that had appeared in their robe. They wanted to look at it later, figure out how the hives worked so they could make one of their own. “Of course not,” they said smoothly, smiling sweetly and joining her where she was leaning, arms crossed, against a tree three times the size of their house. “Home? The honey is still good.”

She frowned a moment more at them before nodding, taking their offered arm and letting herself be led across to the nearest forest pathway.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You only asked one question, and I think you could tell what I was doing.”

She sighed. “If you want to know how they work, humans have written quite a bit about it. And I still have my original plans for the things, lying around somewhere.” Vaguely, they waved an arm about, as if the plans for the first beehive could be found tucked into any root or trunk.

“But that isn’t fun, is it?” They smiled, looking away before she could turn her gaze back to them.

She just grunted, not responding for a while.

Then, as they rounded a particularly large oak, she said, “You’re frustrating.”

They just laughed, grinning and looking at her with wide, adoring eyes. “Everyone is frustrating you lately, aren’t they?”

“No,” she shook her head, then sighed. “A bit. Do you know how tempting it is to go give that boy Gabriel a good smacking?”

“Yes, you talk about it frequently.”

“And then the humans have gone and started their first world war. And I know I planned it like this but I didn’t expect it to get so bad!”

“Well, that’s free will for you.”

“I know,” she huffed. “My second worst invention.”

“And your worst?” They raised their eyebrows, sending her a knowing look.

“You, of course. And your mask of secrecy.”

They laughed. “And it’s all your fault.”

“You  _ choose  _ to make it worse, though.”

“I do,” they affirmed, nodding seriously. “You need to try not knowing, it’s marvelous.”

She just groaned, and they bickered the rest of the way home. 

* * *

They both knew she made them. She made them, their little cottage-style house, their forest, the very plane of existence they walked in. Reflecting in the forest sometimes, they thought that probably should bother them more than it did. In the earlier days, they remembered sneaking down a plane lower, to the realm of Heaven, to see how the others treated her. They’d stumbled upon a Choir, singing a hymn about her glory, and disgusted they’d nipped right back up. Though she would joke about how well they’d get along without her, they knew they loved and depended on her, just like all those other things -  _ ‘angels’  _ she’d later tell him they were called - but still, something felt wrong about that kind of worship, that kind of cherry picking of traits to call out for their glory. The ‘Almighty’ she probably was, but if you worshipped that part of her, should you not also worship her testy side, or her fearful side, or the side that couldn’t cook if her life depended on it (which, it of course, didn’t, because nothing could destroy her)? They wouldn’t do that, none of it. 

Then again, maybe it helped that they remembered how they were created.

It was in the garden, or the forest; that was the second thing to exist (she refused to call it her creation, however; she always claimed that it just popped out of nowhere, that she wanted to try seeing for the first time and  _ boom _ , there it was). Then, after the plants, was them.

There had been a big, yellow flower above them, with subtle orange streaks, and when they opened their eyes they found it had dusted pollen on them, so they sneezed, simultaneously pushing themselves upwards into a sitting position. At the loud sound and the sudden movement, there was a shriek somewhere to their left, and turning around they saw a little thing staring at him from where it cowered under a big leaf.

It wasn’t a person, or really a being. She didn’t look like anything yet, and was more of a pulsating area of perceived color and movement and light that was likely all created by their mind so they could comprehend her. Despite this, however, it was clear that she was trembling, and that they were staring at them from where they half-hid.

Blinking at the thing, they tilted their head, curious. “Hello,” they said (though not actually, but it was something akin to hello in meaning), and that was the first word ever said - if not exactly verbally, as they didn’t know yet how to speak.

She didn’t respond, just kept shivering and, after a moment, started doing something that gave them the impression of them creeping closer. After a moment, there was a burst of energy, and it came from her direction and meant, “What are you?”

They frowned, furrowing their brows. Humming softly, they turned to face her directly and crossed their legs, studying the plants above their head. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t know either. You just appeared.” She looked at them fearfully, not daring to come closer than a meter or so. “I think I did this,” she said, tone changing in a way like a verbal voice would get higher, and they stiffened as she started backing away. Then, in a flash of movement from her, they were gone.

Some time later, they asked her, “Why did you put me away?”

She winced, guilt masking her face as she avoided his gaze. “I was afraid. I didn’t know I could create things, not things like you were.”

“What was I?”

“You weren’t me.”

And they nodded, understanding, for they knew that the forest they lived in was her - literally, an extension of her being - and they knew that after him, she created the first angels, and those, though they hadn’t actually been her, had had no free will yet and she had known everything about them. It was a while before she had the courage to create free will, something unpredictable though not outside her omniscience, and a while more before she brought them ‘out of storage’ from the void they’d been floating in. They were the biggest unknown in the universe; she had no view into what they were, and since they had free will, they could do anything. She knew nothing of them, and they knew it was both frustrating and thrilling for her at the same time. Yet, she named them “Reuel” - God’s friend - and they knew she depended on them just as much as they depended on her. Even if no one but she knew they existed, Reuel felt a responsibility for the world that she had created (one that sometimes they worried she didn’t always feel). For if she fell, everything fell, and they were really the only pillar nearby to catch her.

“Is this why you made me?” They asked on night as they two of them drank copiously and made fun of bad movies that wouldn’t be filmed for centuries (not that that kind of time mattered to them). He had just found out about the Flood and convinced her to stop the great rains, and right then both of them were keen on forgetting that little incident of her temper.

“Why I made you? How should I know why I made you?” She frowned, postponing taking another sip of wine to get it out.

“Come on, El, must have been some reason. It’s not like things pop out of ya willy nilly.”

She snorted. “That’s not how creation works.”

“You know what I mean,” they rolled their eyes, taking a generous gulp of their drink.

“Well,” she put down her drink for real now, signifying she was going to dedicate something to this thought. “You appeared after I had been wandering the garden for awhile. I think I was a bit lonely, and bored, you know, knowing everything, and I wondered what it would be like if there was a me I didn’t  _ know _ , or  _ feel _ . And then…  _ poof _ ,” she made a respectable poof shape with her hands, curling her fists together and then expanding them outwards like a dust cloud, or one of those higher complexity atoms she was still experimenting with creating.

“Huh,” they nodded, “ t’ makes sense. Alright.” 

Then a couple on screen walked into the abandoned house, and they both got caught up in booing out of shame.

* * *

That was their life for an undecreed amount of time, some length of the fourth dimension that may or may not have lined up with the years passing down on earth. Walking, talking, doing their own little projects on the side while constantly managing their one walking, talking big one. It wasn’t hard, especially as time wore on and she left less and less.

Then, one ‘day’ as they were watching the little beetles that crawled along the bark of most of the trees, Reuel realized that, in Earth time, she hadn’t come to talk to him once in nearly a week. Startled by this realization, and more than a bit worried (since they were anything but ignorant of what she’d set to happen in the Earth year 1996, which they were currently somewhat aligned with), they headed back to the house, and found it empty. They spent a while after that searching, and only after realizing she was nowhere on that plane did they return to the house.

Where she was sitting, hastily scrawling a long, long list onto a piece of paper that neither looked to be the handwriting of the Almighty God, nor should have been able to fit everything she wanted to write. Furrowing their brow. Reuel walked up behind her chair, startling her by putting a hand on her shoulder.

“El? What’s up?”

Settling back down, she shrugged off his hand, muttering softly to herself as she continued writing. “Something’s gone wrong,” she said, voice hoarse, and Reuel froze. She had been caught off guard, and by something other than them. Last time they checked, that wasn’t how omniscience worked. 

Taking a shaky breath, Reuel nodded and stepped back, shuffling away and into the little kitchen to brew some tea (a habit that had started as a joke between them, but by this point, they thought was completely necessary). It was a miracle (or, more accurately, many miracles) when they managed to bring the tea unspilled to her side and place it softly on the wood, well away from the list that seemed to be her only concern at the moment. Pulling a stool over from the sitting area, they sat down right by her form and put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her slightly in their direction and away from the list.

“El, can you explain this to me?” They said, calmly, slowly, trying to catch her expression as her eyes flickered frantically between the pages on her desk and unfocused to see some scene on another plane. Usually, she kept a small, human-like form, but for the first time since their birth they could see parts of her true self leaking out, first as her body started randomly changing - growing, shrinking, changing colors - and occasionally seeped a bit of void that made their head throb to look at. She looked nearly as frantic as she had when they’d first seen her, and it took all their willpower not to fall apart at the sight.

“Reuel, I need to hurry-”

They shook their head, and immediately time on the mortal planes below them slowed down. “No, you don’t. You need to calm down.”

Finally, she looked away from her desk and they caught her gaze, and immediately her eyes stopped changing color, settling on their usual bright brown.

“Tea?” They nodded at the mug, still the perfect temperature, on her desk. Mutely, she nodded and took it, taking deep gulps, and the tiny cup didn’t run out of soothing liquid until she was done with it and put it back down. Reuel nodded, squeezing her arm, which had thankfully settled back on its normal size. “Now, tell me. What is wrong.”

“Armageddon.”

Reuel winced. “Right, okay. Tell me the original plan again?”

Her eyes flashed. “You know the original plan already.”

They rolled their eyes. “Tell me again?”

Leaning back into her chair, she said, “Right. You remember, the antichrist boy was supposed to go to Tadfield - which he did - and grow up there, where he’d be met by the horsemen. They’d kickstart the end of the world, all but the little corner I’d set aside, and the rest of it would be used as a battlefield for Heaven and Hell-” she rolled her eyes at this, eternally annoyed at the spat between her children that had forced her to separate them (though she hadn’t initially intended Falling to be quite so painful), “-so they could finally work out this dumb rivalry. Both would lose, and we’d have one system again, and then the humans I set aside would repopulate the Earth.”

Reuel nodded, not batting at eye, or asking many of the questions they had already asked about the (in their opinion) needlessly dramatic plan she’d put into place. “Okay. And what’s gone wrong?”

“Those bastard husbands,” she snapped, fists curling in frustration as her eyes unfocused and she scowled at something she was watching far away. “They’re about to stop it, like they stop everything else.”

Reuel smiled, despite themselves. After all, there was only one couple she ever referred to as ‘the’ husbands, even if their bond had technically been broken when only Kadmiel (or ‘Crowley’, as he now called himself) fell, leaving his poor Principality behind. Actually the first couple ever to be married, one of her two pets had ended up on her firstborn’s side, and regrettably was pushed out of Heaven for it. Now, she’d given the two every chance to rekindle the relationship, but to her annoyance both Lucifer and Michael had decided it was for the best to erase the memories of before the Fall, and both of them were too skittish and oblivious to get back together on their own. Contrary to popular belief, she had few bad feelings towards demons (other than a little annoyance that they  _ had _ to go and start a fight among her angels) and the couple had been such a stabilizing force in Heaven before the Fall she’d originally tried using  _ them _ as the unification between the two sides. But of course, the two never got past pining, so she’d moved on to plan B: Armageddon. Still, even so, that didn’t mean the two of them didn’t take to watching the earth officers’ shenanigans when things got slow, if only for the entertainment value.

However, Reuel caught themself when she glared at them, and forced themself to frown at the statement. “What are they doing?”

“They’re trying to  _ stop _ it, and they have no idea what they’re doing at all, so I’m-” she froze, looking guiltily at Reuel before turning away and going back to her list. With a blink, time down below was restored to its normal pace. “I’m reorganizing,” she finished.

“Reorganizing?” Reuel frowned, for real this time, not trusting her for a second.

Curtly, she nodded. “I’ll be done soon. And then…”

Feeling sick, Reuel stood up and moved their stool back to its proper place. They may not have been omniscient, but they could read the being they’d known for - quite literally - time immemorial, like a book. “You don’t know.”

Vigorously she shook her head, then suddenly dropped her pencil and folded up the lengthy sheet of paper. “I know as much as I need to. After that…” meeting their eyes, she frowned deeply, an inner war flashing behind the changing colors of her eyes. With a loud swallow, she pulled them in for a hug. “I’ll need you to take care of her, alright? Just remember that.”

Confused, Reuel opened their mouth to answer, but she just gave them a peck on the cheek, pressed something hard and metal into their palm that they didn’t bother to process, said “Hang on to this, will you?” and then turned away, flying towards the door. “Only a few seconds now, I’m sorry!” Her voice was already dimming as she called over her shoulder.

“Wait!” For the first time in their life, Reuel felt panicked, pressured as if by some impending future. It burned on their heels, shoving them out the door after her, where they quickly lengthened their stride enough to catch her elbow within seconds.

She froze, looking back at them in horror. “What are you doing?”

“I-” they caught their breath, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm down as the feeling of panic loomed ever higher over their shoulder. “I don’t know. I just- El, I need to know what you’re doing.”

“Why? I’ll be fine, I promise,” she pulled away, her arm easily flowing in and out of existence to free her.

“Tell me,” they insisted, and though she didn’t continue into the woods, she didn’t answer. A stone was rising in their throat. “And if you don’t, I’ll know it’s because I won’t like it.”

She nodded. “You’re right, you won’t like it. But…” she paused, and her voice was steadier, louder, and more  _ god-like _ when she continued, “it will work out. I’ve figured out a way, and she’ll be better for everyone than me.”

“What are you talking about?” Reuel frowned, confusion drawing lines across their face. “You sound like you’re replacing yourself, that’s impossible.”

“No, no it’s not, Reuel.” And then they froze, dumbfounded, and at that moment she gave him a sad smile and blinked her eyes.

She was gone. And though Reuel thought they were screaming, sound can’t travel in a void.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it has been a long time since I published the first chapter of this work. And I swear that won't happen again, it was not planned for. Between end of school work/projects and everything else that's going on in the world right now, I have not had a lot of time for writing. I also live in the US, and if anyone has been paying attention to the news here or lives here you will understand why it's been very difficult to write lately. Between the virus and the protests, I always feel kinda guilty for doing anything 'unproductive', including writing fanfiction, so getting the motivation to write this has been hard. But, well, I'm not allowed to join any protests and am not old enough to volunteer, so... I eventually did write this.
> 
> I hope you enjoy, we finally get some ineffable husbands in this chapter, and I promise they will not be absent again!

“Somebody, angel, you fret like it’s his eleventh birthday all over again.”

“Well, it is! In a way. Twelve is a very important milestone for children you know, more so than eleven… at least, I think it is. And, not just considering human rituals, who knows what will happen.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “What, please, tell me what on earth could  _ possibly _ happen today that would be worth this.”

“Oh you know,” Aziraphale frowned, pursing his lips and unconsciously wringing his hands. “Things. Like, erm… something could happen to his powers!”

“Something with his powers? That was last year, angel, you’re going to have to be a little more creative than that.”

Aziraphale huffed, glaring at Crowley out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t know, okay! But something, something could happen. You never know.”

“Yes, angel,” Crowley rolled his eyes. “That’s how the world works.”

The angel didn’t reply, just frowned, and looked away from Crowley to watch the trees pass by the window. Or maybe fly. Yes, fly was a better word, or blur, they passed by the speeding Bentley so fast. Much faster than was necessary, as they were already set to be early for Adam’s birthday party. In fact, Aziraphale didn’t think he was imagining how they seemed to be increasing in speed.

“Crowley,” he barked, the image of a bike and a young witch flying over the car hood flashing across his mind, “do you not remember the last thing that happened when you went this fast on this road?”

The demon just shrugged, smirking as he pushed his foot further down on the gas pedal. “Nope, can’t remember a thing. I assume everything just went peachy though, didn’t it?”

“ _ Crowley _ .”

The demon rolled his eyes with enough force that he was sure Aziraphale didn’t need his eyes visible to see it. “ _ Aziraphale. _ There is nobody here. It’s a little country road in the middle of nowhere.”

“Tell that to Anathema.”

“Anathema,” Crowley retorted, “was doing a weird witchy thing in a field. Most people don’t do weird witchy things in random fields in the woods, so most people don’t use this road. And I highly doubt she will be out and about today and not focusing on keeping those rascals from tearing her cottage apart.”

“Maybe so, but still, you never know what can happen,” Aziraphale insisted, fixing Crowley with a pout that - should the demon have not been focused very purposefully on the road, would have broken him in an instant.

“Yes, but you can make reasonable assumptions,” he said, turning his gaze pointedly to Aziraphale as soon as the deadly trap had been repealed. “And-”

“Crowley-”

“ _ And _ I can assume-”

“Crowley slow down!”

“-that I won’t bloody hit anybo-”

“Dammit, Crowly!” Aziraphale screamed, and he leapt forward, grabbing the steering wheel and twisting it to the side furiously.

“Oi!” The demon made to shove the angel off, but before he could there was a heavy  _ thump _ on the right side of the Bentley where, despite Aziraphale’s efforts, they had slammed into something. Or somebody. “Oh.” Crowley’s face grimaced as the car rolled to a stop. “Fuck.”

“ ‘Oh’ indeed,” Aziraphale muttered, twisting around in his seat to look out and back through the window. Just visible along the side of the road was a pile of limbs and clothing. Aziraphale’s breath caught, and there was a long pause. “Dear.” 

“It’s a deer? Thank somebody.”

“No, Crowley. Crowley,  _ dear _ .”

“Oh. Yes?”

“They’re not moving.”

Crowley paused, mouth contorting into various shapes before finally settling on, “Shit.”

* * *

It’s a disorienting feeling, falling without remembering tripping. Or being pushed, or losing your footing, or falling victim to any of the normal things that precede falling. There wasn’t even standing up, just the feeling of being just on one toe and slowly tipping forward until suddenly something hard struck their head and they were lying in something cold and wet and prickly. It took a moment for them to realize that the wet and prickly thing was grass, and a moment more for them to push themselves up and open their eyes. Then they closed them again as the world did its own falling over in front of them, and then promptly passed out.

* * *

Something was wrong, that much they knew. What, though? As they opened their eyes, they strained against their addled brain, trying in vain to focus but only succeeding in dizzying themselves. Their head felt clouded, cotton filled, and stunted, like something valuable had just been cut off. This was on top of the deep exhaustion that filled it, the kind of tiredness that could only come from sleeping way, way too long. To steady themselves they dug their fingers into the grass but flinched away as something cold and metal pressed hard into their palm. Flickering open their eyes, they looked down. A key. The cut off part of their brain started to throb, and with a groan, they closed their eyes again and slid the key out of sight, into a pocket. In doing so, they felt a layer of dust and pollen and moss that had collected over their skin crinkle, and the sound made them cringe.

How long had they been out for? And why did it feel like something huge was displaced?

The forest was just like it should be, they saw when they opened their eyes, and it felt good. A piece of the cotton on their brain lifted, and it was like a huge weight had been pulled from their aching head. They thought that the forest must have been what they had seen before they fell, and before they fainted, though they couldn’t remember when or why that was. It felt like a while ago, though. Furrowing their brow, they looked around, but the trees and the house behind them looked just like they should like they hadn’t changed at all since they’d last seen them. Feeling oddly disconcerted by this, they started to stand with a grimace.

Only to immediately trip and fall, their muscles aching. Unlike the house and the forest, the muscles felt odd, like a new addition. Indeed, their entire form felt heavier and more physical than it had any right to be.  _ Wrong _ echoed through every fibre of their being, stiffening their muscles and making it a struggle just to get to their knees. Pausing to catch their breath, they furrowed their brow, trying to think of a reason why, but going down that road immediately gave them a headache, so, groaning, they gave it up, instead putting all of their energy into standing up.

To their relief, they were able to do so after only a few more tries, and it only took a few steps before they were limping along quite nicely towards a house. Like the forest, it looked right, and they decided it was a good place to go to. Go to do what? They didn’t know. But they certainly didn’t want to keep sitting in the wet grass, that was for certain.

The door they opened was perfectly heavy, and the light falling across the room fell at a perfect angle that brought relief crashing over them.  _ Home _ , it all said, like they had walked through this same door hundreds, thousands of times before.  _ Why is that? _ they thought, making the back of their head throb again and forcing them to stumble towards a chair across the room, taking hold occasionally of other chairs and furniture on the way to keep themselves from toppling over. On the way, their hand brushed a piece of paper on the desk by the window, sending it flying off onto the ground. Groaning, they cursed under their breath and leaned over, just managing to grab the paper off the ground before stumbling the extra meter to the right chair (why was it the right chair? They didn’t dare ask).

As they moved to put the paper back down they hesitated.  _ No,  _ they shouldn’t put this down. It was important.  _ Why? _

Again, their head hurt and they groaned. This was already growing tiresome.

Studying the paper they couldn’t see anything special about it. It looked like a list, written haphazardly in such curved and looped handwriting the words looked more like a child’s attempt to draw some curly hair then legitimate writing. The letters, also, looked deeply familiar, but even so, it took a few moments of squinting at the text before they were able to begin parsing it out.

  * _Luci_


  * Hell


  * Heaven


  * Earth


  * Husbands 


  * Jasmine Cottage


  * witch&finder


  * Them


  * Dog


  * Ducks (not mallards) 


  * Kraken (keep put away)


  * U.S.A. (keep put away???)


  * Gaiman (erase memories, bloody prophet) & book (keep put away)


  * Forest & Reuel (key)



They paused at that last line of the seemingly random list, brow furrowing.  _ Forest & Reuel. _ Those two words sent their head ringing with shockingly painful alarm bells, but the splitting headache that arose did nothing to remove the wall that seemed to be blocking them from reaching that sore part of their mind.  _ Forest & Reuel. _ What forest? There were a lot of forests out there (for example, the forest right outside the house they were in). And what did ‘Reuel’ mean? They could ask the same about a lot of the things on the list (Them? Book? It was all frustratingly vague), but that word -  _ Reuel _ \- made their head throb with an urgency that nothing else did.

Something was missing, clearly. They felt it like they had read (when? where?) some people felt ghost limbs, a tingling outline sensation of what  _ should _ be there but which offered no details or helpful clues, only a vague and fluctuating sense of pain in the back of their skull, made worse by certain things, like that last bullet point -  _ Forest & Reuel. _ And as wonderful as that horrid feeling was, it did nothing for them, so they put the confounding piece of paper down on a side table.

After waiting for a few moments and resting their head in their hands they found that it had stopped spinning enough that they could stand up steadily look around without endangering any of the objects around them. 

It was a decent sized room, not especially big or small (though, to be honest, they had no idea what metric they were using to make that judgment). The wall with the door was facing perfectly east, as the light of the morning sun shone through where they’d left it open and the large windows that took up most of that wall. Something about that placement disturbed them, as if the house hadn’t always faced east, but they dismissed the thought quickly. A long rug ran in front of the door and parallel to the wall, going straight from the south wall - which was shorter and windowless, instead taken up by a large tv and some paintings - to the desk pressed up to the north wall. There was a window above it, and on the opposite side of the wall, across the beginning of a long hallway, was a correlating window that cast light onto a long, thin table stacked with potted plants, all of which were dead. They stared at the plants, finding them just as disturbing as the eastward placement of the little house. They shouldn’t be dead. Walking over to them, they took the leaf of the nearest plant in their hand and watched as their fingers crushed the grey, curling leaf into dust. It had once been an ivy plant. Blinking, an image of the live plant, glistening as they poured water into its rich soil flashed across their mind before it was quickly replaced with the sight of the poor thing’s present state.  _ Dammit, _ they grimaced.  _ How long has it been since I watered you? I’m sorry. _ Feeling their gut clench, they turned away from the plants.

The chair they’d been sitting in was an armchair, hideous and dark green, and it along with a felt stool and a long dark couch faced the tv on the south wall. On the west wall were more windows, though their light was dimmed by the myriad of sketches and paintings - these unframed and clearly not as professional as the ones by the tv - taped to the glass. Looking at the drawings they felt their headache start to return, not so bad but taping on the back of his mind like a reminder. The sketches, like the list, seemed completely unrelated. A lot were of plants. Some people, though their faces, no matter how hard they studied them, they didn’t recognize. Some animals. Some that looked almost like blueprints, though they weren’t just for buildings and the like but star systems and organisms. And then, all lined up along the top of the windowpane, were portraits of someone. They looked like the same someone. A woman, short and plain, sleeping, eating, gardening… never looking at the viewer, nearly always focused on something else except in a few portraits where she was shown glaring or making a funny face like she didn’t like being drawn. The pictures were the clearest of all of the ones on the windowsill, though, and the only pencil sketches that had been gone over in pen or watercolored. Pausing at one sketch, they pulled it down, careful not to rip the paper on the tape. This one was colored in very carefully, very beautifully, with watercolors. A green and brown forest filled the background, and in the foreground was the woman, hanging upside down from the limp of a tree. She was actually grinning, her teeth were white and her eyes were browner than the trees and dappled light fell across her tan face and dark hair and made them speckled, like a leopard’s pelt. Their breath caught, and they could almost see her in person, hear her laughing.

_ “Don’t you dare save that picture!” _

_ “And why not? You look beautiful,” they grinned, and she crossed her arms with a huff. _

_ “I’m hanging from a tree like a lunatic.” _

_ “And you  _ are _ a lunatic, so what’s new?” She glared at them, and they laughed. “Hey, you knew the danger when you decided to climb up there.” _

She had opened her mouth to stay something after that, but the memory was suddenly cut off and the pain in the back of their head almost blinding. Clutching the paper they backed away from the wall and fell onto the couch, gritting their teeth. A heavy lump was building mass in their throat and behind their eyes, and between that and the headache it felt like they were about to explode. Vision blurring, they felt themselves stuff the painting into their pocket and leap upward, and before they knew it a warm summer breeze was propelling them forward and away from the house that hurt so much. Breathing heavily, they walked swiftly away and into the forest, not thinking past the urge just to get away, to stop the pounding in their head however they could. The trees blurred past them, and roots and rocks appeared out of nowhere every few steps to stumble them and keep them from achieving any rhythm of motion, keeping their heart pattering loudly and unevenly in their chest. But still, they walked fast, faster and faster, doing anything to get away.

After some time the ground beneath their feet suddenly smoothed out, and it was hard, and when they opened their eyes they thought they saw asphalt, like for a road, but only for a moment. For they slowed down, surprised, but then there was a screeching, and they didn’t even have time to look up before something huge and black was ramming into them from the side of their vision and the darkness and pain lingering in the back of their mind swelled and enveloped them completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated!  
> And, as for the slight jab at America, I'm American, so I can make fun of it.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an oddly hard chapter to write, but I hope it raises a lot of questions for you all! Will they be answered soon? Maybe (maybe not).
> 
> Just a note, I wasn't sure how Aziraphale would refer to our strange car crash victim here, as he often says "dear boy/girl" or "dear fellow". Obviously, I couldn't use the gendered former, so I have Aziraphale use "dear fellow" a few times and probably will in the future. I know generally "fellow" refers to a man, but it does have some gender-neutral uses that refer to peers or comrades and the like, and is definitely more gender-neutral than "dear boy/girl". Reuel appears pretty androgynous, so Az and Crowley will be using they/them pronouns for them from the beginning. I just didn't really know how to portray this phrase Aziraphale uses a lot for Reuel and haven't written many gender-neutral characters, so this is what I've settled on. So when Aziraphale says "dear fellow" he means it gender neutrally, if that makes any sense.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,  _ shit _ ,” each word was uttered louder than the last as Crowley’s brain finally caught up to the sight outside his window and propelled his limbs to move him out of the car. Close behind him, Aziraphale opened his mouth a few times but didn’t say a word as the two of them rushed over to the body on the side of the road.

“Are they breathing? How much damage did you do?”

“I don’t know! Give me a minute,” Crowley snapped, crouching down and turning his victim onto their back as, behind him, Aziraphale found himself wringing his hands. For a moment, the demon seemed like he didn’t know what to do, just hovered over the limp body, shaking slightly with nerves.

“I think you check for a pulse, dearest,” Aziraphale offered, craning over his partner’s shoulder for a better view.

“Ngk, yeah, right.” Gulping, Crowley hesitated a moment before slowly lowering his finger onto the person’s neck.

At the touch they jerked, sending Crowley leaping back with a startled shout as their eyes flew open and they pushed themselves up, gasping. Blinking wildly they sat there, breathing hard for a moment, seemingly blind to the two very startled beings in front of them.

“Uh,” Crowley started as their breathing started to return to normal. The person blinked, but their eyes didn’t focus or look at Crowley.

“Hello? Are you alright?” Aziraphale finished for him, crouching down and putting a hand on the demon’s shoulder (which was barely higher than the person’s they’d run over, as in leaping back he’d fallen to sprawl inelegantly across the pavement). He watched the stranger steadily, and after a moment their eyes focused and they seemed to watch him back. Aziraphale smiled, repeating, “Are you okay?”

The stranger blinked. “You’re a demon.”

Aziraphale’s jaw dropped slightly. “Uh…”

“Why are you here?” The stranger narrowed their eyes at him suspiciously and looked him up and down. “I didn’t think…” their narrowed eyes suddenly screwed up in pain and they groaned, letting their head drop forward into one of their hands.

“How do you know that?” Aziraphale’s eyes widened, and as Crowley scrambled up he dragged Aziraphale up and back, putting a few meters between them and the strange being.

“Angel,” Crowley started, inching in front of him. “I don’t-”

“ _ You _ !” They gasped, cutting off the demon with a startled half shout. They stared at him, and Crowley flinched back to huddle closer in front of Aziraphale.

“Erm, me?”

The stranger didn’t elaborate, just stared at Crowley with a confused and pained expression before dropping their head in their hands once again. From behind him Aziraphale put a comforting hand on Crowley’s shoulder and stepped forward.

“Could you tell us your name, dear?” He said to the stranger, now huddled up with their head cradled in their hands.

“My name?” They didn’t even look up as they said it, just let out a low groan.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, as patiently as he could. “Then we need to get you to a hospital. Did we hit your head?”

“No, no, it’s been aching before this…”

“Oh,” Aziraphale blinked and glanced back at Crowley, but the demon offered nothing but a halfhearted shrug as he continued frowning at the stranger. “Well, um, we should still get you checked out. Can you stand up?”

The stranger dropped their hands from their head and nodded slowly. Bringing their knees up to their chest they stood up slowly, wobbling and leaning heavily on the hand Aziraphale offered. When they had successfully stood up, Aziraphale let go and gestured towards the car. “Could we offer you a ride?”

Crowley frowned, eyeing the stranger suspiciously. “Angel, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale glared at him and Crowley shivered, cursing internally. It was the same exact glare he gave the children when they ate all the biscuits without him. “You ran this poor person over with your car, so you will take them to the hospital in your car. It’s only fair.”

Any other time Crowley would have nodded meekly and then gone straight to a bakery for an apology gift. But, “Aziraphale,” he hissed, pulling him aside so they could whisper, “they knew you were a demon.”

“I know that,” Aziraphale replied tersely. “But they also seem to be in pain and hardly in a state to cause us danger.”

“You’re missing the point, angel.  _ Nothing _ but God Herself should be able to know what we are.”

Aziraphale sighed. “Yes, I know that.”

“So you want to just let this person in the car when we have no idea what they are, or how powerful they are?”

“Crowley, they can barely stand up.”

“And they’re barely injured at all after I rammed them with the Bentley!”

“Exactly,” Aziraphale’s eyes sharpened triumphantly. “ _ You _ hit them with the Bentley.”

“I don’t think you’re taking away the right things from what I’m saying,” Crowley grumbled, but it was too late. Aziraphale had decided that he had won and was already shuffling the confused and pained looking stranger (who, by the way, was still glancing at Crowley way too often to let him be comfortable) toward the car.

“It’s alright, I’m dreadfully sorry we hit you. My name is Aziraphale, and that fellow over there with the glasses-” Crowley snorted at this, “-is my husband, Crowley. He’s a bit protective of his car right now but in truth, he’s completely harmless. Isn’t that right, dearest?”

Crowley blinked, suddenly finding himself on the receiving end of another one of his husband’s pointed glares, the kind that said  _ You better be harmless or else you’re sleeping on the couch for a month, you hear me?  _ And while he may have stood for it back before the End that was only because he didn’t know what he was missing. So, glancing at the figure now protectively shielded by one of Aziraphale’s arms around his shoulders, Crowley hazarded a smile. 

“Mhm, just the glasses that are intimidating, really. Nice to meet you.” Pulling a hand out of his pocket he even waved awkwardly.  _ That angel will be paying me back for this. I’m still a demon, I am.  _ But even as he grumbled internally he felt his smile soften as Aziraphale beamed at him.  _ Bastard.  _

Turning away from him Aziraphale busied himself with ushering the stranger into the backseat of the Bentley. “You sure you’re alright, dear fellow? We hit you pretty fast, are you comfortable.”

The stranger seemed to mumble something, and whatever it was must have satisfied Aziraphale because he nodded, closed the door, and walked over to open the passenger door.

“Everything alright up there?” He asked, eyeing Crowley as he ran his hands over the side of the Bentley that had been hit in the impact.

“It will be in a moment,” the demon muttered, frowning in concentration as he smoothed out any scratches and dents he could find on the otherwise flawless metal.

“Good.” Aziraphale smiled at him and moved to get into the car.

“Wait one second, angel,” Crowley stopped him, holding up a finger as he corrected the last of the damage to the Bentley with the other hand. Giving the car one last once-over he then moved to go around the open passenger door.

The former angel furrowed his brow. “Wha-”

“I,” Crowley started, wrapping his arms around his angel’s waist and pressing him against the car for a heated kiss, “am still evil.” He quirked up an eyebrow and looked over his sunglasses at Aziraphale as he pulled back a smidge, holding his husband’s chin and keeping them barely a hair’s width apart.

Flushing Aziraphale smiled at him. “I know, dearest. I know nobody more evil.” He smiled like he was stifling a chuckle and patted Crowley on the chest as an indicator for him to release him. Sighing, Crowley did just that, leaning forward for one last (chaste, and definitively unevil) peck before letting go of Aziraphale and walking around to his side of the car.

When the two of them finally sat down, the stranger was staring at them, brow furrowed.

Crowley glanced back at them via the rearview mirror and frowned. “What are you looking at?”

The stranger took a moment longer to stare at them before answering, “I… I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

“Uh,” Crowley raised an eyebrow, “I don’t think so.”

Aziraphale nodded, looking back at the stranger with worry. “Yes, I’m sorry, but I can assure you we’ve never met.”

“No, no we haven’t,” the stranger nodded, agreeing but not quitting their study of the two. “I’ve seen you, though. And him,” they turned their gaze towards Crowley, “I’ve met him.”

“Really? And when was this?” The demon said it as he started up the car and prepared his foot on the gas pedal.

“I,” the stranger grimaced, screwing their eyes shut as they had before, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Have we met or have we not?”

“I…” the stranger grimaced, their face wrinkling around their eyelids that were shoving themselves painfully and forcefully over their eyes to try and block out whatever it was that was making them grimace. Brow wrinkling in worry Aziraphale looked back at them.

“Are you sure you’re alright, dear fellow?”

“No,” the stranger shook their head, finally looking up to meet Aziraphale’s gaze with wide eyes. “No, I don’t think I am.”

“Listen, mate,” Crowley interjected, “is there anywhere we can drop you?”

“Crowley, we have to take them to a hospital!” Aziraphale’s head snapped back towards his husband to allow him to frown at him, but Crowley just shrugged, carefully looking not at Aziraphale but at their passenger in the backseat. 

“They seem alright to me.”

“I, I don’t need a hospital,” the stranger agreed, much to the former angel’s displeasure.

“Well, if you insist. Let us take you somewhere then. Where were you heading to?”

Aziraphale watched the stranger with a steady gaze and tried to subdue the fluttering of his own nervous hands as they paled, their eyes flickering back and forth like they expected the answer to pop out of nowhere. Somewhere inside of him, Aziraphale felt his stomach twist, the old angst and paranoia that he always used to feel when he felt something to do with Heaven or the supernatural turning over in its (admittedly still pretty fresh, for an immortal being) grave. Before him the stranger frowned, radiating nervous energy and  _ something else _ that he couldn’t quite place, but that stood in the same area that angelic or demonic energy should have been. As the stranger continued to fret Aziraphale felt himself begin to regret his decision.  _ Maybe Crowley had been right…  _ as if summoned by his thoughts, his husband’s hand appeared over his own and squeezed it, refocusing Aziraphale just in time for him to hear the stranger’s response.

“I don’t think I know. I wasn’t going anywhere.”

Besides Aziraphale Crowley frowned. “Were you just out for a stroll, or what, do you just not remember?”

“I don’t remember,” the stranger affirmed, and with that statement, their stiff shoulders seemed to relax and they leaned back against the back of the car seat. “Yeah, I don’t remember… That’s it.”

“What’s it?” Aziraphale asked, twisting further around to look at the stranger.

“I, I can’t remember anything. I woke up, I had a headache, and I was running in the woods and then I was here.” They said this matter of factly, plainly, their face expressionless except for a single crease across their brow as they stared at the floor of the Bentley. Then they looked up, gaze conflicted (though over what, neither Aziraphale nor Crowley could begin to guess). “I woke up by a house. That’s the only place I remember.”

There was a moment of silence as the two in the front seat glanced at each other. Crowley raised an eyebrow questioningly, but Aziraphale just shrugged, pointing his gaze back at the stranger. Crowley sighed.

“Alright. We’ll take you to this house, hopefully, there’ll be someone to pick you up there. Which way?”

Wordlessly the stranger pointed out the window and into the trees, off the side of the road on which they had appeared.

“You can’t be serious,” Crowley muttered, hands gripping the steering wheel like they were insisting on driving.

The stranger just shrugged, not meeting his gaze. “I didn’t see any roads by the house. Sorry.” 

“Right, no, of course.” The demon sighed, rubbing a hand down his face and sulking in his seat for a moment before following the stranger and his husband out of the car. Immediately the stranger started off the pavement and into the trees, and glancing at each other the two demons hurried after them. They walked quickly with longer strides as if they hadn’t just been rammed into by a speeding Bentley, and Crowley watched them suspiciously.

“They’re not human,” he muttered, careful to keep his voice low as he and Aziraphale trailed behind their guide.

The former angel sighed. “I know. But they aren’t angel or demon.”

“And they know what we are.”

“Yes.”

The silence between them hung heavy and grave, broken only by the crunching of leaves and branches beneath their feet.

“I think you know how much I don’t like this,” Crowley said, face long as he looked back at Aziraphale from his gaze’s brief trip behind them. The road had disappeared from sight.

“I know, I don’t either. But we don’t have any other choice, do we?”

“We don’t? I thought the whole point of being like this-” he didn’t elaborate on what he meant by that, just did an odd waving motion at nothing with his hands that had Aziraphale chuckling, despite the circumstances, “-was to be able to choose to go to some child’s birthday party instead of this occult nonsense.”

“Occult and/or ethereal,” Aziraphale corrected absent-mindedly, then grimaced. “Oh no, we’re going to be late for Adam’s birthday now, aren’t we?”

Crowley snorted. “Yeah, we are, angel.”

“Oh well… as I said, we haven’t much choice. I don’t think you want this… person wandering around any more than I do. Not with their aura.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” the demon sighed and reached out to grip Aziraphale’s hand in his own. “Doesn’t make me like it anymore.”

“I know, dearest.” Absently Aziraphale brought Crowley’s hand up and gave it a light kiss, patting it comfortingly and then letting their hands hang between them as they followed the figure deeper into the forest in silence.

As they went the vegetation grew thicker, and in the blink of an eye the familiar plants disappeared in favor of large, glossy leafed, alien vegetation that crowded thicker and thicker around them. They walked through what soon came to feel like a tunnel, the stranger ahead of them following some barely visible half-path that only just saved them from having to struggle against leaves and bush and vine. Following them, the two demons gripped each other tighter.

“Do you feel that?” Aziraphale murmured, gaze flickering around to see all of the foliage and failing.

Pretty much pressed up beside him Crowley nodded. “Yeah. Same aura as them, strong, not Earthly.”

“What is it doing  _ here _ , though? This didn’t exist a year ago.”

“No idea.”

The conversation stopped there as suddenly the thick jungle suddenly cut off and they stepped out into a stretch of sunny grass and a view of a small cottage. Looking at it the two beings blinked rapidly, Aziraphale even letting escape a small gasp as he took in the energy radiating from the deceptively normal looking building. They shivered, taken completely by surprise.

Unfazed, the stranger walked up to the door and opened it. Glancing back at the demons they offered a small, nervous smile. “Here it is. This is my home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading (I know this is a weird fic), kudos and (especially) comments are always appreciated!


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... *drumroll please* more confusion! Our favorite demons are not getting a break from the sheer weirdness of there strange acquaintance quite yet.
> 
> Here I also make more than a few references to Faithful Only He, and though neither characters remember the events of that story so it's okay if you haven't read it, it may be helpful to :D (though it's still a work in progress).
> 
> Enjoy!

“At least,” they furrowed their brow, “I think so. I think it’s my home.”

Aziraphale hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “You… don’t know?”

The stranger shook their head, face pulling into a grimace. “No. I don’t remember anything clearly.”

The two demons didn’t respond, just glanced at each other, and then followed the strange entity into the cottage.

It was a nice little place, Aziraphale noted. Small, but cozy. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, bathing soft furniture, a tv, a neat desk, some plant pots, and a wall of sketches in warmth. Catching his breath, he paused in the doorway and scanned the place. It screamed of power, and looking it over it seemed nearly idyllic (other than the dust coating everything and the dead plants against a wall). If he was still an angel Aziraphale was sure he would have felt the same love swamping the place that he did in Tadfield.

Crowley must have noticed it too, for just a few steps ahead of Aziraphale he stopped, choking down a cough as he looked around the space with suspicion.

“Feel that?” he asked.

Behind him, Aziraphale nodded. “Yes… it’s perfect here.”

The demon grunted. “Yeah, too perfect. No hate, no fear, no stress. No human place is this empty of, well, all that.”

“Tadfield is.”

“Tadfield the home of  _ both _ Christ and Adam, of course it is. And this isn’t Tadfield.”

“No,” Aziraphale pursed his lips and finally walked through the doorway to put a hand on his husband’s shoulder. “This is something more than Tadfield. You can feel it, can’t you?”

Crowley hesitated a moment before nodding. “Yeah.”

When Crowley did nothing but continue to stare around the room pensively Aziraphale sighed and left him, following the stranger as they wandered across the room and down the hall that split the northern wall. As he moved he glanced quickly at the sketches pinned to the window, but didn’t study them any further. Instead, he walked into the hall, slowing as he entered. It was lined wall to wall with photographs, framed and stuck wherever there was room along the wall with barely any space between some of them. In fact, the hall seemed a little longer than the small house should have allowed as if it had extended just long enough to fit all the photos collected by whoever was the place’s keeper.

And they were curious photos. At the beginning were places. Desert dunes. The stars from Earth. The stars from… somewhere else? The pyramids, regal and, if Aziraphale didn’t know better, looking almost like they had the day they’d been completed. An island city, it looked like Tenochtitlan. A broad forest, like the kind that barely existed in the modern-day. Little things crawling around a vent in the ocean, the water deep and dark and lightless beyond the flash of the camera. A bustling marketplace that could have been from anywhere or anytime, filled with the rich hanging around shops and the poor hanging around corners. A gravestone, unmarked but with an apple carved into the rock.

Then it seemed to be events, also all out of order. A rocket launching. A cart rolling down a hill on rickety wheels. A man standing next to a printing press, proudly holding up a scroll. A computer turning on. Soldiers running across a battlefield towards each other, some holding guns to firing, others already bearing forth their bayonets. Two men looking at each other across a valley - one pale and stocky, the other lean and dark. A woman holding forth a piece of corn just about the size of her hand and staring at it in wonder. Eve… Aziraphale froze as he recognized her, shocked. Eve clutching her sweating and swollen belly, a head poking out from where she was crowning, Adam, panic-stricken, at her shoulder and… a sword, propped in the corner. Aziraphale’s breath caught. 

_ Who would have this? _ He thought, his eyes growing wide as he turned to hungrily gobble up the sight of more pictures. More events - a man on a mountain, a man at a cross, a woman burning on a stake, a rat jumping onto a ship deck, a chain of people tied up in ropes, the Times Square ball dropping - pictured small and large, from the times of photographs and long before. And then, down the line, portraits.

Michael.

Cleopatra.

Shakespeare.

Cain and Abel.

An angel that looked familiar but who Aziraphale couldn’t quite place.

A small, brown fellow Aziraphale remembered as having invented cuneiform.

Cai Lun.

Muhammed.

Jesus.

Malcolm X.

Jane Goodall.

Lucifer.

More and more faces, some in group portraits, others by themselves, seemingly random, sometimes with their accomplishments besides them, sometimes just a face when a face was all that was needed. Most of them were tiny, squeezed close together to fit more and more of the people who were famous and the people who were forgotten, angels and demons and humans, so many that Aziraphale’s eyes hurt when he tried to parse out exactly how long the hall was and exactly how many pictures were there because there were just too many and just too much space taken up for it to be physically possible.

All of it made the question of  _ Who? Who?! _ that had been nagging the back of his mind since their strange acquaintance had first called him a demon pound even harder.

As if hearing his thoughts (and his headache), the stranger, who was standing at the very end of the hall, suddenly caught Aziraphale’s attention as he grunted in surprise, looked at him, and then looked away just as strangely.

Attention successfully snagged, Aziraphale gave his eyes a break from the wall and started walking towards his acquaintance. “What is it?” he asked.

The stranger jumped slightly, then looked between them and a photograph in front of them on the wall a few times almost with a panic. “Uh…” 

Aziraphale reached them before they could answer and, giving them a confused look first, turned to look at the photograph for himself.

What he saw made him freeze.

* * *

They were portraits. Most of the sketches were anyway, Crowley found. Nothing suspicious, at first glance. A lot of random people mixed in with the plants and the stars and a few oddly placed anatomical diagrams of animals and other things. Like it was their special place all the portraits on the top row were of the same woman, all just doing ordinary human things, and though looking at the sketches made something in his brain itch - like he was supposed to recognize her, but couldn’t quite pinpoint from where or when - he dismissed them.

No, what caught his attention were the other portraits. The ones that weren’t of her, or of the occasional random person. They were few, but they were there, and it froze him.

The first one he saw was less of a portrait, more of a scene. It was unfinished, done mostly in pencil but with some paint splashed on here and there in the background. There was a bright orange fire already painted in the background of one corner; that was what had got his attention. But what kept it was the two figures in the center of the scene, standing in the foreground of the fires.

One was hooded, their face obscured so that he couldn’t see anything recognizable about them.

The second, kneeling in front of the figure, was Gabriel.

The kneel was not graceful. Gabriel’s wings were stained with ash and blood (some of it painted, some of it just shaded), barely a single feather left truly white, all six of them out and sagging to the ground off his side like dead flower petals. He was on his knees, hands splayed in front of him palm side up, his face held up to stare with wide eyes at the hooded figure looking down on him. Tears streamed down his face, and his mouth was open like he was trying to speak. Crowley gaped at the picture, eyebrows raised high above his sunglasses. 

And then, what he saw behind Gabriel actually blew him away (thoroughly and rudely dismissing his belief that he was already blown away). 

It was less of a what and more of a who. It was an angel, a small seraph who hadn’t been painted at all yet but whose face was shaded dark from ash, swooping down and reaching towards Gabriel with a cry evident on their face. At first, Crowley didn’t even recognize them, but curious about who would look at the archangel that way (after all, even most of the other archangels seemed to dislike him sometimes) he leaned in closer.

“What the fuck-” Crowley’s jaw dropped even further as the younger (but still recognizable as the same face that stared him down with a sneer every meeting for the last 600 years) face of Beelzebub stared back at him - or rather, at Gabriel, whose kneeling form seemed to be the only thing angel Beelzebub saw.

_ Who the hell could draw this? _ He thought, peering at the sketch with shock over his sunglasses. And, more curiously,  _ Did this actually happen? _ After all, it wasn’t like anyone remembered Heaven before the Fall. But still, the image was rather far fetched…

As were the other portraits. At least, the idea that someone who knew of them would also want to draw them was far fetched.

Pinned beneath Gabriel’s pleading was Lucifer. Not as he was in Hell, but before, as the Lightbringer. As the only thing that most of the demons could remember from Heaven. It was a split portrait, just of him from the shoulders up, with his face divided in half to show two different expressions. On the left side, he looked younger, his mouth grinning wide and displaying dimples in his cheeks, his eyes crinkled with tears - evidently of joy - dotting the edges. Crowley stared at that side, a side he couldn’t remember ever seeing.

The right side made more sense. The background was the same white as before but with the addition of clouds of smoke. It looked like there was a wind, for Lucifer’s hair was flying wildly and embers were blowing into his face. His expressions on this side were steely, mouth a thin line, beautiful eyes icy and cold. His jaw was clenched, and if the rest of him hadn’t been so cold Crowley might have thought he was in pain. Overall, the contrast between the two sides was disturbing.

The next portrait wasn’t even out of the sketching stage. An oval face was penciled in, none of the features defined yet. Long, flaming red hair very much like his own was already colored in, along with detailed blue eyes and brows, staring down at the viewer with something like confusion and compassion (how the pair of sea-green orbs showed that he wasn’t exactly sure, but they did). Just barely was visible a faint outline of a hand being reached forward. After that, the artist had apparently stopped.

But still, even with just the eyes and the hair finished, it again tickled something in the back of his mind. Like he should know them, those eyes, just as he should the woman; remember something about them because… 

Before he could give it any more thought, though, he was yanked out of his head by Aziraphale’s voice coming from down the only hallway, where he had disappeared after their strange guide (and possible artist?).

“Crowley!” The former angel’s voice came over a bit too loud and too high pitched for Crowley’s liking, sending a shiver up his spine and what, after centuries of rescues, he’d come to call his ‘angel alarm bells’ ringing. Within moments he had abandoned the strange sketch and was at Aziraphale’s side, hand on his arm and looking past him at the (surprised looking?) stranger on his other side.

“What, what is it?” Crowley asked, when, after a few moments, he didn’t immediately notice any obvious danger.

In response, Aziraphale just nudged him in the direction of the wall he and the stranger were staring at and pointed at a picture he could see out of the corner of his eye shakily. Brow furrowed Crowley turned to look at the photo.

Again, the house decided to completely redefine his definition of blown away.

There, in a crisp and clear photograph as high definition as anything, was him and Aziraphale. They stood together beneath an arbor dressed in all white, holding each other’s hands and grinning at each other like lunatics, foreheads pressed together like they’d just broken from a kiss. Behind them stood a woman - the  _ same _ woman from the sketches on the window, Crowley realized with a start - smiling at them just as broadly, and surrounding them stood angels. A huge crowd of angels, white wings out and crowding the bottom half of the frame as it looked like the photographer was in the crowd, their hands in the air or clapping or wrapped around other angels. White practically filled the photo, the white angel wings beneath them, the white marble steps of the stage they were uplifted on, the white wood of the arbor, the white of their clothes and of the sky behind them, the white of Aziraphale’s wings wrapped all the way around them so that they reached Crowley’s back and almost looked like his own-

_ Wait. _

Aziraphale in the photo had four wings, two hanging back, two folded forward. But their tips touched the ground by Crowley’s ankles; they were not enough to reach all the way around to encompass them like wings were.

No, the other half of the white feathers were Crowley’s. Crowley’s perfect, big, white wings, wrapping him and Aziraphale up in a huddle as they stood surrounded by angels in a white square. As they  _ were _ angels in a perfect white square with perfect white buildings in the background.

“Angel-”

“I don’t-”

They both stopped, jaws dropped and the energy to make up words as they went petering out as the other interrupted them. In the end, they both ended up staring at the stranger, who was looking between them and the photo with a look between confusion and pain.

“What is this?” Crowley barked at them, and Aziraphale’s gaze flew back to him, eyes startled.

The stranger just blinked at him, finally stopping their seesaw to meet his eyes fully. “What?”

“You said this is your house, so,” the demon flew a hand towards the offending picture, “what is this?”

“Uh, I think it’s a wedding.”

Crowley felt the blood drain from his face, and refusing to look at Aziraphale he glared at the stranger harder. “You  _ think? _ ”

To the demon’s surprise, the shock and confusion on the stranger’s face gave way to annoyance and they glared right back at him. “Yes, I  _ think. _ As I told you, I don’t remember anything. I woke up outside this house, I went in, and it gave - is still giving me - a splitting headache, so I left, and you ran me over!”

“Yes, and we’re so sorry,” Aziraphale interrupted, giving Crowley a sharp look. “And that is why we plan on helping you figure out what’s happening, okay? This photo will, erm, will help with that. And, of course, it’s also a bit of a matter of personal importance…”

The stranger’s face relaxed and they nodded at Aziraphale, not looking back at Crowley. “Yes, of course. Let me think.” They smiled at Aziraphale again reassuringly before turning back to study the photo. As they stared the crease in their brow deepened, and the look of pain returned to their face and grew until they finally closed their eyes and turned around.

“Are you alright, dear fellow?” Aziraphale turned with them, hands clasped together like they wanted to wring as he watched them massage their forehead.

The strange waved him off, nodding. “Yes, yes, I’m okay. Remembering, trying to remember… it gives me a headache.”

“So do you remember any more?” Aziraphale pressed gently.

“A bit.” The stranger let go of their head and looked back to Aziraphale to talk, though they pointedly did not look back at the picture in question. “That is you two, a long time ago, I think.”

“Yes, well, we got that, thanks,” Crowley said dryly, scowling at the picture. “Obviously it was long ago, my wings are bloody white!”

The stranger’s brow furrowed, and they risked a quick glance at the photo before looking away again. “No, your wings aren’t bloody there. There may be a few drawings or photos where they are, though.”

“What? No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Wait,” Aziraphale held up a hand, glancing at Crowley with concern, “why would his wings be bloody?”

The stranger shrugged. “I don’t know. My memory… it’s coming. It comes in little snippets, pictures, and voices. No context. I remember seeing pictures of you two… she would call you ‘the husbands’, I think. I remember her doing that, pointing at this picture and saying something about ‘the husbands’. That’s, that’s probably where I recognized you from, actually. I remember that, uh, this, it was your wedding. It was the first one.”

“The first what?” Aziraphale’s lips were pressed thin, and Crowley could see curiosity and concern warring in his eyes.

The stranger looked at him, then at Crowley, straight in the eye.

“The first married couple.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated, and you can tell me if I'm being too vague or playing up the confusion factor too much.


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... *drumroll please* more confusion! Our favorite demons are not getting a break from the sheer weirdness of there strange acquaintance quite yet.
> 
> Here I also make more than a few references to Faithful Only He, and though neither characters remember the events of that story so it's okay if you haven't read it, it may be helpful to :D (though it's still a work in progress).
> 
> Enjoy!

“At least,” they furrowed their brow, “I think so. I think it’s my home.”

Aziraphale hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “You… don’t know?”

The stranger shook their head, face pulling into a grimace. “No. I don’t remember anything clearly.”

The two demons didn’t respond, just glanced at each other, and then followed the strange entity into the cottage.

It was a nice little place, Aziraphale noted. Small, but cozy. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, bathing soft furniture, a tv, a neat desk, some plant pots, and a wall of sketches in warmth. Catching his breath, he paused in the doorway and scanned the place. It screamed of power, and looking it over it seemed nearly idyllic (other than the dust coating everything and the dead plants against a wall). If he was still an angel Aziraphale was sure he would have felt the same love swamping the place that he did in Tadfield.

Crowley must have noticed it too, for just a few steps ahead of Aziraphale he stopped, choking down a cough as he looked around the space with suspicion.

“Feel that?” he asked.

Behind him, Aziraphale nodded. “Yes… it’s perfect here.”

The demon grunted. “Yeah, too perfect. No hate, no fear, no stress. No human place is this empty of, well, all that.”

“Tadfield is.”

“Tadfield the home of _both_ Christ and Adam, of course it is. And this isn’t Tadfield.”

“No,” Aziraphale pursed his lips and finally walked through the doorway to put a hand on his husband’s shoulder. “This is something more than Tadfield. You can feel it, can’t you?”

Crowley hesitated a moment before nodding. “Yeah.”

When Crowley did nothing but continue to stare around the room pensively Aziraphale sighed and left him, following the stranger as they wandered across the room and down the hall that split the northern wall. As he moved he glanced quickly at the sketches pinned to the window, but didn’t study them any further. Instead, he walked into the hall, slowing as he entered. It was lined wall to wall with photographs, framed and stuck wherever there was room along the wall with barely any space between some of them. In fact, the hall seemed a little longer than the small house should have allowed as if it had extended just long enough to fit all the photos collected by whoever was the place’s keeper.

And they were curious photos. At the beginning were places. Desert dunes. The stars from Earth. The stars from… somewhere else? The pyramids, regal and, if Aziraphale didn’t know better, looking almost like they had the day they’d been completed. An island city, it looked like Tenochtitlan. A broad forest, like the kind that barely existed in the modern-day. Little things crawling around a vent in the ocean, the water deep and dark and lightless beyond the flash of the camera. A bustling marketplace that could have been from anywhere or anytime, filled with the rich hanging around shops and the poor hanging around corners. A gravestone, unmarked but with an apple carved into the rock.

Then it seemed to be events, also all out of order. A rocket launching. A cart rolling down a hill on rickety wheels. A man standing next to a printing press, proudly holding up a scroll. A computer turning on. Soldiers running across a battlefield towards each other, some holding guns to firing, others already bearing forth their bayonets. Two men looking at each other across a valley - one pale and stocky, the other lean and dark. A woman holding forth a piece of corn just about the size of her hand and staring at it in wonder. Eve… Aziraphale froze as he recognized her, shocked. Eve clutching her sweating and swollen belly, a head poking out from where she was crowning, Adam, panic-stricken, at her shoulder and… a sword, propped in the corner. Aziraphale’s breath caught. 

_Who would have this?_ He thought, his eyes growing wide as he turned to hungrily gobble up the sight of more pictures. More events - a man on a mountain, a man at a cross, a woman burning on a stake, a rat jumping onto a ship deck, a chain of people tied up in ropes, the Times Square ball dropping - pictured small and large, from the times of photographs and long before. And then, down the line, portraits.

Michael.

Cleopatra.

Shakespeare.

Cain and Abel.

An angel that looked familiar but who Aziraphale couldn’t quite place.

A small, brown fellow Aziraphale remembered as having invented cuneiform.

Cai Lun.

Muhammed.

Jesus.

Malcolm X.

Jane Goodall.

Lucifer.

More and more faces, some in group portraits, others by themselves, seemingly random, sometimes with their accomplishments besides them, sometimes just a face when a face was all that was needed. Most of them were tiny, squeezed close together to fit more and more of the people who were famous and the people who were forgotten, angels and demons and humans, so many that Aziraphale’s eyes hurt when he tried to parse out exactly how long the hall was and exactly how many pictures were there because there were just too many and just too much space taken up for it to be physically possible.

All of it made the question of _Who? Who?!_ that had been nagging the back of his mind since their strange acquaintance had first called him a demon pound even harder.

As if hearing his thoughts (and his headache), the stranger, who was standing at the very end of the hall, suddenly caught Aziraphale’s attention as he grunted in surprise, looked at him, and then looked away just as strangely.

Attention successfully snagged, Aziraphale gave his eyes a break from the wall and started walking towards his acquaintance. “What is it?” he asked.

The stranger jumped slightly, then looked between them and a photograph in front of them on the wall a few times almost with a panic. “Uh…” 

Aziraphale reached them before they could answer and, giving them a confused look first, turned to look at the photograph for himself.

What he saw made him freeze.

* * *

They were portraits. Most of the sketches were anyway, Crowley found. Nothing suspicious, at first glance. A lot of random people mixed in with the plants and the stars and a few oddly placed anatomical diagrams of animals and other things. Like it was their special place all the portraits on the top row were of the same woman, all just doing ordinary human things, and though looking at the sketches made something in his brain itch - like he was supposed to recognize her, but couldn’t quite pinpoint from where or when - he dismissed them.

No, what caught his attention were the other portraits. The ones that weren’t of her, or of the occasional random person. They were few, but they were there, and it froze him.

The first one he saw was less of a portrait, more of a scene. It was unfinished, done mostly in pencil but with some paint splashed on here and there in the background. There was a bright orange fire already painted in the background of one corner; that was what had got his attention. But what kept it was the two figures in the center of the scene, standing in the foreground of the fires.

One was hooded, their face obscured so that he couldn’t see anything recognizable about them.

The second, kneeling in front of the figure, was Gabriel.

The kneel was not graceful. Gabriel’s wings were stained with ash and blood (some of it painted, some of it just shaded), barely a single feather left truly white, all six of them out and sagging to the ground off his side like dead flower petals. He was on his knees, hands splayed in front of him palm side up, his face held up to stare with wide eyes at the hooded figure looking down on him. Tears streamed down his face, and his mouth was open like he was trying to speak. Crowley gaped at the picture, eyebrows raised high above his sunglasses. 

And then, what he saw behind Gabriel actually blew him away (thoroughly and rudely dismissing his belief that he was already blown away). 

It was less of a what and more of a who. It was an angel, a small seraph who hadn’t been painted at all yet but whose face was shaded dark from ash, swooping down and reaching towards Gabriel with a cry evident on their face. At first, Crowley didn’t even recognize them, but curious about who would look at the archangel that way (after all, even most of the other archangels seemed to dislike him sometimes) he leaned in closer.

“What the fuck-” Crowley’s jaw dropped even further as the younger (but still recognizable as the same face that stared him down with a sneer every meeting for the last 600 years) face of Beelzebub stared back at him - or rather, at Gabriel, whose kneeling form seemed to be the only thing angel Beelzebub saw.

 _Who the hell could draw this?_ He thought, peering at the sketch with shock over his sunglasses. And, more curiously, _Did this actually happen?_ After all, it wasn’t like anyone remembered Heaven before the Fall. But still, the image was rather far fetched…

As were the other portraits. At least, the idea that someone who knew of them would also want to draw them was far fetched.

Pinned beneath Gabriel’s pleading was Lucifer. Not as he was in Hell, but before, as the Lightbringer. As the only thing that most of the demons could remember from Heaven. It was a split portrait, just of him from the shoulders up, with his face divided in half to show two different expressions. On the left side, he looked younger, his mouth grinning wide and displaying dimples in his cheeks, his eyes crinkled with tears - evidently of joy - dotting the edges. Crowley stared at that side, a side he couldn’t remember ever seeing.

The right side made more sense. The background was the same white as before but with the addition of clouds of smoke. It looked like there was a wind, for Lucifer’s hair was flying wildly and embers were blowing into his face. His expressions on this side were steely, mouth a thin line, beautiful eyes icy and cold. His jaw was clenched, and if the rest of him hadn’t been so cold Crowley might have thought he was in pain. Overall, the contrast between the two sides was disturbing.

The next portrait wasn’t even out of the sketching stage. An oval face was penciled in, none of the features defined yet. Long, flaming red hair very much like his own was already colored in, along with detailed blue eyes and brows, staring down at the viewer with something like confusion and compassion (how the pair of sea-green orbs showed that he wasn’t exactly sure, but they did). Just barely was visible a faint outline of a hand being reached forward. After that, the artist had apparently stopped.

But still, even with just the eyes and the hair finished, it again tickled something in the back of his mind. Like he should know them, those eyes, just as he should the woman; remember something about them because… 

Before he could give it any more thought, though, he was yanked out of his head by Aziraphale’s voice coming from down the only hallway, where he had disappeared after their strange guide (and possible artist?).

“Crowley!” The former angel’s voice came over a bit too loud and too high pitched for Crowley’s liking, sending a shiver up his spine and what, after centuries of rescues, he’d come to call his ‘angel alarm bells’ ringing. Within moments he had abandoned the strange sketch and was at Aziraphale’s side, hand on his arm and looking past him at the (surprised looking?) stranger on his other side.

“What, what is it?” Crowley asked, when, after a few moments, he didn’t immediately notice any obvious danger.

In response, Aziraphale just nudged him in the direction of the wall he and the stranger were staring at and pointed at a picture he could see out of the corner of his eye shakily. Brow furrowed Crowley turned to look at the photo.

Again, the house decided to completely redefine his definition of blown away.

There, in a crisp and clear photograph as high definition as anything, was him and Aziraphale. They stood together beneath an arbor dressed in all white, holding each other’s hands and grinning at each other like lunatics, foreheads pressed together like they’d just broken from a kiss. Behind them stood a woman - the _same_ woman from the sketches on the window, Crowley realized with a start - smiling at them just as broadly, and surrounding them stood angels. A huge crowd of angels, white wings out and crowding the bottom half of the frame as it looked like the photographer was in the crowd, their hands in the air or clapping or wrapped around other angels. White practically filled the photo, the white angel wings beneath them, the white marble steps of the stage they were uplifted on, the white wood of the arbor, the white of their clothes and of the sky behind them, the white of Aziraphale’s wings wrapped all the way around them so that they reached Crowley’s back and almost looked like his own-

_Wait._

Aziraphale in the photo had four wings, two hanging back, two folded forward. But their tips touched the ground by Crowley’s ankles; they were not enough to reach all the way around to encompass them like wings were.

No, the other half of the white feathers were Crowley’s. Crowley’s perfect, big, white wings, wrapping him and Aziraphale up in a huddle as they stood surrounded by angels in a white square. As they _were_ angels in a perfect white square with perfect white buildings in the background.

“Angel-”

“I don’t-”

They both stopped, jaws dropped and the energy to make up words as they went petering out as the other interrupted them. In the end, they both ended up staring at the stranger, who was looking between them and the photo with a look between confusion and pain.

“What is this?” Crowley barked at them, and Aziraphale’s gaze flew back to him, eyes startled.

The stranger just blinked at him, finally stopping their seesaw to meet his eyes fully. “What?”

“You said this is your house, so,” the demon flew a hand towards the offending picture, “what is this?”

“Uh, I think it’s a wedding.”

Crowley felt the blood drain from his face, and refusing to look at Aziraphale he glared at the stranger harder. “You _think?_ ”

To the demon’s surprise, the shock and confusion on the stranger’s face gave way to annoyance and they glared right back at him. “Yes, I _think._ As I told you, I don’t remember anything. I woke up outside this house, I went in, and it gave - is still giving me - a splitting headache, so I left, and you ran me over!”

“Yes, and we’re so sorry,” Aziraphale interrupted, giving Crowley a sharp look. “And that is why we plan on helping you figure out what’s happening, okay? This photo will, erm, will help with that. And, of course, it’s also a bit of a matter of personal importance…”

The stranger’s face relaxed and they nodded at Aziraphale, not looking back at Crowley. “Yes, of course. Let me think.” They smiled at Aziraphale again reassuringly before turning back to study the photo. As they stared the crease in their brow deepened, and the look of pain returned to their face and grew until they finally closed their eyes and turned around.

“Are you alright, dear fellow?” Aziraphale turned with them, hands clasped together like they wanted to wring as he watched them massage their forehead.

The strange waved him off, nodding. “Yes, yes, I’m okay. Remembering, trying to remember… it gives me a headache.”

“So do you remember any more?” Aziraphale pressed gently.

“A bit.” The stranger let go of their head and looked back to Aziraphale to talk, though they pointedly did not look back at the picture in question. “That is you two, a long time ago, I think.”

“Yes, well, we got that, thanks,” Crowley said dryly, scowling at the picture. “Obviously it was long ago, my wings are bloody white!”

The stranger’s brow furrowed, and they risked a quick glance at the photo before looking away again. “No, your wings aren’t bloody there. There may be a few drawings or photos where they are, though.”

“What? No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Wait,” Aziraphale held up a hand, glancing at Crowley with concern, “why would his wings be bloody?”

The stranger shrugged. “I don’t know. My memory… it’s coming. It comes in little snippets, pictures, and voices. No context. I remember seeing pictures of you two… she would call you ‘the husbands’, I think. I remember her doing that, pointing at this picture and saying something about ‘the husbands’. That’s, that’s probably where I recognized you from, actually. I remember that, uh, this, it was your wedding. It was the first one.”

“The first what?” Aziraphale’s lips were pressed thin, and Crowley could see curiosity and concern warring in his eyes.

The stranger looked at him, then at Crowley, straight in the eye.

“The first married couple.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated, and you can tell me if I'm being too vague or playing up the confusion factor too much.


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit late, and with a lot of bickering, but here we are. Still in the same cottage. (Though, to Crowley's displeasure, Az is set on changing that). Enjoy!

Crowley felt a guffaw rise and then choke halfway up his throat. With a wheeze he lurched forward, reaching out to the wall with one hand to support him as he keeled over, half laughing, half crying, but mostly just making some half-choked and unintelligible noises, to the distress of his husband and this growing-weirder-by-the-second stranger.

“Oh dear!” he heard Aziraphale exclaim as the former angel took his shoulders, grip light but there in case he decided to be even more shocked and fall to his knees. “Crowley,” he said, “please…”

He didn’t finish, just trailed off as the demon’s corporation decided against falling over and straightened itself out, still making noises halfway between a twisted laugh and some kind of angry objection that nobody (including Crowley) could parse out. Finally composing himself (not totally, but at least enough), Crowley looked back up to stare at the stranger. A hand, like insurance, still pressed against the wall, and he felt the yellows of his eyes expand to reflect his trembling limbs. Aziraphale put a hand on his arm, but he ignored it, instead putting all of his energy into gaping at the person across from him, who was still standing nonchalantly next to the picture.

The picture. Of him and Aziraphale getting married. As angels. 

Not that they hadn’t gotten married already as demons (and thank Someone for that), but still… “Ngghhhh.” 

“I’m sorry,” the stranger blinked. Their head was tilted to the side questioningly, and a line just starting to appear across their brow. “I don’t know what that means.”

Aziraphale started, “It means-”

“It  _ meanssss, _ ” Crowley hissed, cutting him off, “What the Hel- Hea-  _ Earth _ is that supposed to mean? First marri-” he snorted instead of finishing the word and let go of the wall, choosing instead to take Aziraphale’s arm and take them both a few steps backward. “Who the fuck  _ are _ you?”

Beside him, Crowley felt Aziraphale try and steady him in place but he ignored it, tightening his grip on his husband as he continued to back down the hall, away from the stranger who was squinting at him. His alarm bells were ringing, drowning out the rest of his hearing (or maybe that was just his useless heartbeat, but he decided that it didn’t matter), and despite tugging slightly on his hand to try and keep him in place Aziraphale didn’t let go of his hand or speak up, just let the demon drag him a good few meters backward and inch in front of him.

Still standing by the photo at the end of the hall the stranger shrugged, looked away from them to the photo, and then back down to the living room at the front of the cottage. When they spoke, the voice was strained, a little high pitched, but still forced steady. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“Okay,” Aziraphale said, voice and a small, nervous smile both gentle. Placatingly he held out a hand and stepped a little closer to the stranger, despite the low whine the movement caused to come out of Crowley’s throat. “That’s fine. Just, let’s just go and sit down, and we can work this out. You can tell us what you know, and-”

“But I don’t know anything!” The stranger’s voice cracked as they replied, and it was like something sharp and metal had just slipped and was now screeching intolerably against the surface where it had previously been controlled. Across from the couple they gulped, panic finally breaking through on their features and growing in their voice. “None of this makes any sense, I can’t tell you any of it! What do I know? I know that I know nothing, that when I try to know things and when I looked at this house and these pictures and when I looked at, at him-” he looked to Crowley, “my head throbs and feels like its reaching out for a severed limb, reaching for something that  _ should be there _ but, just, just  _ isn’t.  _ I- I know that something feels wrong, and something was happening  _ before _ \- whatever that is - and I need to be doing something about that, not be here. I don’t belong here, me, this house, we shouldn’t be here. And, I don’t-” their voice cracked painfully as tears that had started pooling in their eyes finally burst, flushing past the dam to flood their cheeks. They grimaced at the sensation, stepping back and hiding their face in their hands as sobs wracked their body and they slid down against the wall. “I don’t know,” they repeated into their palms, the words crooked and broken as they snuck their way out between cries. “I don’t know, I don’t know…”

“It’s-” Aziraphale stepped forward, reaching out and moving as if to go to the stranger as they crouched against the wall, head on their knees, but Crowley stopped him in his tracks. Face impassive, the demon gripped Aziraphale’s shoulder in a tight grip, unrelenting.

“Crowley,” the former angel snapped, “let me-”

“No.” Crowley didn’t look at Aziraphale, nor at the figure sobbing in the corner. Frowning, he dragged his husband all the way down the hall and to the front door of the cottage.

Aziraphale let them walk away, but as Crowley moved to open the exit he finally stopped, halting Crowley with him. “No, Crowley, we’re not leaving.”

“Yes, yes we are,” the demon still didn’t look at him, just opened the door and made to step through it.

“Crowley, stop!”

Aziraphale didn’t make a move, but of course, Crowley froze mid-step anyway. 

“Look at me,” the angel snapped, and taking his husband’s hand he pulled him back into the house and faced his shoulders toward him. “Now then,” he pulled off the demon’s glasses, sliding them into the pocket of his waistcoat and patting his cheek until he opened his eyes. Grimacing, Crowley attempted to match Aziraphale’s glare, but after just a few moments failed.

“Mhm,” Aziraphale hummed, nodding at him. “There we are, see? You are scared, I see that, and I trust that without those ridiculous glasses you can see that I’m stubborn enough that we are not leaving here until we get some answers and help that poor fellow. Right?”

Crowley sighed, but his face softened. “You’re going to be a bastard about this, aren’t you?”

“Oh yes, of course,” Aziraphale smiled at him sweetly, and Crowley snorted. Eyes shining like they did when he had won, the former angel took his husband’s hand and started pulling him back towards the hall.

“Wait, no, not quite yet, angel,” Crowley said, pulling Aziraphale back as he slid his glasses back on. Turning back around, he pursed his lips and fixed Crowley with a pout that the demon, for his own self-preservation, looked away from. Instead, he fixed his gaze on glaring at the hallway across the room. “I agreed not to turn tail and run, but I still have yet to see you offer a better option. And I am  _ not _ going back and dealing with that, erm…”

“Person,” Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “They’re just a person, dearest.”

“Fine, person.” Crowley shrugged. “A clearly powerful, connected, celestial, and some other shit person. Who we’re not going to deal with until  _ you _ offer up a plan.”

“Just me? I would think you’d want to contribute to the plan,” Aziraphale sniffed.

“Uh, no. I already offered my plan, and you rejected it. You can think of a new one.”

Aziraphale hummed, finally dropping his pout as his face turned thoughtful. “Alrighty then. I say you quit being a coward and follow me back to where we left that poor fellow sitting on the floor in tears. Then we can… I don’t know, take them out of this house, which is clearly distressing for them, and try and figure out who they are.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Leave the cottage? And where do you propose we take them?”

“Home, to the bookshop of course.”

“Of course-” Crowley sputtered, but the hand he reached forward brushed only empty air as Aziraphale was already hurrying back toward the hall. “Angel, you can’t be serious.”

“I can be, and I am,” Aziraphale replied, a bit tartly, without looking back at him.

“But, Aziraphale, we don’t know who on Earth this person is,” Crowley hissed.

Aziraphale stopped just out of sight of anyone at the end of the hall and turned back to the demon. “Yes, I am aware of that,” he said, his tone sharp and cutting the strings that had been moving Crowley’s limbs forward. “Which is precisely why we need to keep them with us. They are clearly distressed, and we can’t have them wandering around the Earth alone with that kind of power, however it manifests. If I had the choice we would stay here to guard this place as well, but as it is we need to get them out of here to talk.”

“But-”

“No.” If Aziraphale had still been an angel, Crowley wouldn’t have been surprised if the holy power of his steely gaze would have burned him to dust right there and then. As it was, though, his husband just shot him a searing glare that cut him off immediately before he turned around. “I’ll fetch them, and you put up wards around this place, will you? We don’t want any humans accidentally wandering into this forest.”

“Right. Yeah,” Crowley said to Aziraphale’s back, and as the angel moved down the hall he heard the demon turn around and open and close the door behind him. Sighing, he hurried back down the hall to the figure that was still crouching, curled up with their head to their knees, beneath the wedding photo.

“I’m so sorry about that, dear fellow. Have you… are you alright to stand up?”

Mutely the stranger nodded, peeking out over his arms at Aziraphale and glancing once around the hall before finally unraveling and shakily standing up. Smiling gently, the former angel helped them up and guided them down the hall.

“How is your head?” Aziraphale asked once they were both sitting comfortably in the chairs in front of the cottage’s tv. 

The stranger shrugged, not meeting his gaze, though Aziraphale noticed the hand they had been holding to their forehead when they first stood up had dropped. “As well as it was before I tried to remember things. It always hurts in this house though, does the more I focus. Why I was running away in the first place.”

“Ah.” The blond grimaced with sympathy. “Well, if it’s alright with you, Crowley and I thought we’d head back to London, where we live. The three of us, I mean.”

The stranger’s eyes widened. “You- you mean to your home?”

Making sure to smile brightly Azirphale nodded in affirmation. “Yes, if you’d be willing. I thought it may help with your headache. We would like to help you regain your memory, so we can all figure out who you are and why this area is so strange. Do you think you’d be up for trying?”

Smiling shakily, the stranger nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be good.”

“Perfect!” Aziraphale beamed and stood up. “I’ll just go find Crowley, and we can-”

As he spoke the door swung open, slamming shut again dramatically behind the returning demon. Face unhappy but determined, Crowley walked quickly across the room and to the hall, where he snapped his fingers, miracled a canvas bag into his hands, and then started sliding picture frames off the walls.

Furrowing his brow Aziraphale was following at his side in a moment.

“Dearest, what on Earth are you doing?”

For a moment the demon didn’t respond, just grunted as he walked down the long rows of photographs, picking seemingly random ones and dumping them into the bag.

Then, reaching the end of the hall and their wedding photo, he said, “Bringing these with us.” With the sentence, he reached forward, and soon the picture of the two of them was also in the bag.

“May I ask why?”

With long strides Crowley was walking back down the hall to the main room, snatching photos off the wall with ever-increasing speed. “To jog their memory.”

“Oh,” was all Aziraphale replied. Swiftly the demon finished collecting his photos and was across the main room, Aziraphale and the stranger watching him as he pulled sketches off of the west window and slid them under his arm.

“And of these seem especially important to you?” He asked, head turning toward the stranger as he gestured at the wall. “Any especially headache-inducing?”

The stranger shrugged and didn’t move from where they were still standing by the chairs to help. “The top row ones, I guess.”

“This woman?” Crowley jabbed a finger at one of the top sketches, one of many portraits all of the same woman, and the stranger nodded. Mouth a tight line, the demon took all of these sketches, along with a few others, and then snapped the fingers of his free hand. The bag and the stack of drawings vanished.

“Okay, there we go. We all set?”

Aziraphale nodded, smiling at his husband. “Yes, dear. Thank you.”

Crowley grimaced and waved the thanks away. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s just get home, shall we?”

With that he was opening the door, Aziraphale close behind him.

“Wait!”

The two of them paused in the doorway and looked back to see the stranger grabbing a long sheet of paper, covered in scribbles, off of the desk in the corner of the room.

“I think this is important. It gave me a worse headache before.”

The demons nodded, and then the three of them left the cottage and set off back through the forest. As they stepped out back into the shade of the more average trees Crowley’s wards wavered and shielded the dense growth behind them from human view, and both Aziraphale and Crowley breathed a sigh of relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading again, comments and kudos are always appreciated and help me write better chapters!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a bit of a (okay, a decently sized) flashback here, mostly explaining some stuff that will be important later and that is also told (though in a different way, I made sure of that) in Faithful Only He. Plus some earlier memory stuff, don't worry, the amnesia should only last a few more chapters. Enjoy!

_ They’d waited patiently in the darkness, possibly more patiently than any other being had ever waited. Certainly for longer, for, despite what theologians might like to believe, the creation of the world took  _ much _ longer than a mere seven days, and despite what many angels may remember, Heaven and the original Host were around for a hell  _ (no pun intended) _ of a lot longer before the Fall than the mere days the actual fighting had lasted. They’d waited patiently through all of that, through Lucifer’s rebellion, through the (definitely more controlled and encouraged) second rebellion of the humans. In a state somewhat like that of a fetus they waited in the void’s not-quite-space, curled up in a ball and only a quarter conscious at best, still and staring into nothing as she bore her second children, and they fought, and they split, and they grew, and they the firstborn did nothing. They watched colored spots, the kind of shapeless and only-half there blobs one sees after suddenly being plunged into darkness, while the Great War burned holes in Heaven and, like malaised limbs in the hands of a doctor taught only by the Dark Ages, the rebelling angels were chopped off with a chorus of mangled and bloody screams and Fell. They liked to think they were seeing red and blue the day when she finally came up with a plan to sew back those limbs, heals those wounds with modern medicine and unite the ripped flesh with an angel and demon’s union, but the fact was they probably weren’t; they didn’t have even the trickle of information from the outside world that would have given them that much. Instead, they just waited, unaware of it all, with nothing but mirages at the edge of their vision to break the nothingness, not even a coherent thought. _

_ Sometimes they thought he heard him, the visitor. “ _ Hello _?” he’d said, and they would hear that echoed at them, bleared and diluted, even long after he was gone: “ _ Hello? Hello? Heelo? Halo? Halooo? Haho? Lo? Ha-? Hel? He-lo? Hal-lo? Hullo? Hull? Ulo? Al? All? Ello? He-he-he-lo? Loooo? Hello? Hello? Hello? Loelh? Elolh? Heoll? Hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello…??? _ ” again and again, those words were the only things they could think or hear, their sound bouncing endlessly around the nothingness of the void, nothing to absorb or muffle them in their pure energy (for they hadn’t truly been sound, those words, as there was no air for them to travel on, though they wouldn’t realize that until later).  _

_ They couldn’t remember their side of the conversation. They couldn’t hear the energy patterns they’d sent out to the other’s mind. Just heard his responses, endless and confusing. _

_ “ _ Hello? _ ” Tentative, scared, shocking - the first sound they had heard in the void, the second sound they’d heard in their life. _

_ “ _ Am I? _ ” Confused, but fast and sharp, like a knife blade swung in fear at shapeless darkness. _

_ “ _ Who? _ ” Confused again, and oh, so fearful. _

_ “ _ Who put you here? _ ” That rang in their head again and again, “ _ Who put you here? _ ” abrupt, fast, firm, a question that expected to be responded to and that expected not to know or like the answer. A half question, half statement; like a question that the visitor had inevitably had to ask, for there was no other way for things to go. Like a script. _

_ Only they couldn’t answer, not right, at least. They felt the coldness still on their cheek, the emptiness of the place where the warm pad of his finger had once rested and had pulled away after they’d answered wrong. Sometimes they felt the phantom of a finger, warm and pumping fast with ichor, always accompanied by the echoing sounds of “ _ Who put you here? Who put you here? Who put you here?”  _ They didn’t understand really what that statement meant, couldn’t answer the ghosts any better than they could have when they’d been living words. But just like then, they felt a name leave them, a pulse of energy in special waves whose meaning they didn’t fully know except to be the answer to that question which they didn’t fully understand. A name which, for some unknown reason, made the only warm touch they’d ever felt recoil. _

_ That was all they had had. The after-touch, the after-words, and the after-images left by the last time the door opened and was shut again. With those they waited. Waited for so long that they almost thought that first light of the door opening - truly opening - and her words - “ _ Hello? Reuel? _ ” - were apparitions as well. Until she pulled him out, and it was like waking up for the first time. _

_ They didn’t forget their time in the void, however. They had woken up from it, but it had not been a dream, nor like a previous but separate life; they didn’t get such detachment. It was them who they remembered hearing him, the visitor, as he spoke. Them as they were. And they remembered clearly his face, its sharp features, its red hair, the white wings spreading up and behind it, and its day-sky eyes that didn’t quite belong in the void that was darker than night. They remembered then, out of the void, exactly what their conversation had been, and they recounted it to her. _

_ “Who was he?” They asked, and a look of grief dug furrows into her face that seemed to beg them to smooth them out, but they didn’t because she spoke. _

_ “He’s dead, and for a long time, I didn’t understand why. But I get it now. Thanks, Reuel.” _

_ They frowned, not satisfied with the answer. “His name?” _

_ “Why do you want to know?” She looked at him sharply, as even with the thanks to them and the clear relief at that the pain had not slackened. _

_ They shrugged. “Just would like to label the memory, that’s all.” _

_ She sighed, but nodded, having done the same thing when she’d labeled all her angels. When she’d labeled that one, no doubt. _

_ “Abby. His siblings and I called him Abby. But then they forgot him, and he died.” _

_ “Oh.” _

_ Reuel had thought about that long and hard, the forgetting, the dying. They weren’t sure which caused the other, hadn’t really understood yet how the Fall had worked nor how the angels' memories of before the War were more warped and shapeless than theirs were from before their awakening. So they couldn’t fully understand it, only knew that they wanted someone to remember Abby. So they did. _

* * *

Their brain wiped blank, they couldn’t help but stare at the redhead -  _ Crowley _ , the other demon had said his name was - as he drove the car. He looked too familiar, like a face they weren’t supposed to forget. Deja vu plagued them every time they saw his face from the corner of their eye, saw the way a shadow moved across his cheekbones, heard a specific lilt in his voice when he asked a question. They couldn’t remember why, though, of course. Couldn’t remember ever meeting him. All they knew was that his eyes and his name didn’t quite fit the face, like on the face they’d met those features had been different.

They kept these thoughts to themselves, however, aware of how jumpy the red-headed demon was already in their presence. They may not have known what the demons had talked about when Crowley had dragged his husband nearly out of the house, but they could see it in his body - the way he watched them always, slitted pupils flickering up to the car’s mirror and their reflection as they sat in the back, and the way he sat, with a stiffness and an extra friction in his joints that, based on his partner’s troubled looks, weren’t usually there - and his true form - which was tightly coiled and nervous, all of its many eyes wide open and staring at them directly (as if Crowley didn’t think they could see his true form, which was odd), and all of its more vulnerable parts carefully hidden away (save one limb of energy, a pulse with an eye that was always kept trained on Aziraphale, no matter where he moved). They squirmed under his scrutinizing gaze, carefully looking out the window and watching the trees fly past. They tried to ignore the pang they felt in their head every few seconds when they remembered Crowley was there and accidentally glanced at him, instead focusing on carefully rolling and unrolling in an ever tighter bundle the sheet of paper they'd grabbed in their fingers. It was the same one that had sent them running out of the house before, but in the demon’s Bentley, it grounded them as they steadily wore the paper soft - so long as they didn’t try to read it, that was. 

Before long the trees outside disappeared, replaced with rolling countryside. That lasted for much longer, and they had a fleeting thought that that wasn’t how it was supposed to be, but couldn’t recall why. They spent a while puzzling over where that thought had come from, but before they could squeeze anything more out of their stumped (literally, the ghost-limb of their brain was tingling again, and a part of their head hurt like the leftover stump of a severed limb) mind the fields too gave way to houses, small and short at first, but then taller and more crowded together and from the passenger seat Aziraphale was sighing, “Finally, back in London. We’ll be back at my bookshop in no time now, dear fellow.”

Clearly, the ‘dear fellow’ was directed at them, so they nodded mutely as the traffic began to pick up and they started to feel the little bursts of energy that came with miracles as Crowley deftly wove his way through the cars (in ways that, judging by the miracle usage, were probably impossible) and picked up speed, much to Aziraphale’s chagrin. It worked, though, and soon they were all stepping out onto the pavement only slightly queasy in front of a weathered sign reading  _ A.Z. Fell & Co. _

They blinked up at the sign as Aziraphale fiddled with the lock. “Who’s the ‘co’?”

The blond demon paused and then took a step away from the door to assess the sign next to them. “Uh, well, I dare say I’m not sure. It’s just the thing to do, you know? Put a, ah, ‘co’ after things. Makes it seem more official.”

Crowley snorted as he snapped his fingers, unlocking the door without a key and striding in. “What makes a bookshop official,” he called over his shoulder, “is the actual selling of books!”

“Oh hush,” Aziraphale frowned, rolling his eyes pointedly at his husband. “I  _ do _ sell books, for your information,” he said to them as he ushered them through the front door. “Just, erm, not many. It’s not like I need an income, after all.”

“Of course,” they nodded, slightly confused about the whole debate but dedicated to keeping their footing as they were led deeper into the bookshop and urged to sit down in the back room. Gingerly, they sat down on the edge of a couch, which quickly proved to have been a wise choice as Crowley practically collapsed onto the rest of the furniture’s length. “You’re demons, you can just take things. Right?”

Aziraphale gasped and looked at him in horror. “What? Never! We make sure everyone gets paid exactly what they’re owed. We can miracle the money.”

“Oh, right.”

“And sometimes,” Crowley whispered, though it was a pretty loud whisper, “I miracle the money away afterward.” At their startled look, he shrugged and smirked. “Humans don’t always deserve everything they greed for, and angel here is too much of a sucker for his own good.”

“I am not!” Aziraphale retorted, though his indignation was muffled by the walls and bookshelves, as he’d retreated further into the shop. Within a moment he appeared with a tray of tea and biscuits and was putting them down on the coffee table, swatting his husband’s hand away from the plate as he reached to snatch one. “For that, serpent, you can wait.”

Crowley sniffed. “Fine. Don’t like biscuits anyway.”

He got one anyway a few seconds later, as Aziraphale busied his hands with pouring himself and them tea, and the blond demon didn’t even blink.

Once everyone was settled and the two demons were satisfied that the biscuits were at least halfway gone (they weren’t sure why, but they saw that the biscuits were shortbread and didn’t think they would like them so they let their hosts do away with the snacks) Crowley snapped his fingers again and the bag from the cottage appeared in his lap.

“Okay, shall we get the ball rolling?”

They put down their teacup and furrowed their brow. “Uh, sure?” They eyed the bag with apprehension. “What is that for?”

“These,” Crowley said, showing great care as he flipped the bag over and let all the picture frames and loose sketches clatter onto the table, “are going to jog that memory of yours.”

“Mhm,” Aziraphale nodded. “I don’t suppose you remember your name yet, do you?”

They shook their head, looking down at the floor and away from the pictures. “No, nothing.”

“Well, that won’t do,” Crowley announced. “Let’s make that the first thing we dig up.”

“Right…” aloud they agreed, even as they thought of the spilled contents of the bag with a churning stomach. Already a dull ache had settled over their head and the ghost of their memories was tingling, itching painfully with a sting that they knew would only grow.

Yet still, as Aziraphale asked, “Where would you like to start?” they held forward the rolled up piece of paper. The list, whose lines had held such gravity earlier.

“Here.” They handed it to Aziraphale, who promptly unfurled it and began to read, eyebrows bunched in confusion. “It feels important, and nearly split my head last time I read it.”

“This…” the lighter-haired demon paused, his mouth frozen in a round  _ o. _ Eyes having completed their run down the page he handed it to Crowley. “Dearest,” he said quietly, “look at this.”

“Hm? What’s so special about it?”

With a raised eyebrow the other demon took the list and started reading it aloud. “Erm, it’s a list? Luci, Hell,  _ Heaven?  _ Earth, husbands - is that us? - Jasmine Cottage, witch and…” Crowley’s voice trailed off, and with a look of pale shock on his face matching Aziraphale’s, he kept reading the list. Evidently, he gave up halfway through (they didn’t blame him, it was an impossibly long list, they had no idea how Aziraphale had seemingly read the whole thing), choosing instead to look up at Aziraphale. The quick movement had nudged his sunglasses down his nose and they could see his corporeal eyes clearly for the first time. Their yellow irises were blown wide. “Angel, this is…”

“The same order Adam and Christ found the universe put away in, yes,” Aziraphale finished, voice hushed and taunt, like a nervous muscle sneaking forward but ready to turn around and sprint away at the slightest motion.

“You,” Crowley snapped, and they started at the sound and the sudden pressure of his gaze on them, “Do you remember this?”

They shook their head quickly. “N- no. Nothing. Just that, uh…”

“Just what?”

They swallowed with nerves at the urgency in Crowley’s voice but forced themselves to stare at the list and forge on ahead. Leaning forward they traced their finger beneath the bullet that listed  _ “Forest & Reuel (key)” _ . “This. It feels… important. It makes my head hurt more than anything else on the list like it’s vital. Like I should know it.”

The demons were still for a moment, staring at them. Feeling vulnerable they sat up stiffly, looking back and forth between them with a flickering gaze.

“What?” They asked.

Aziraphale hesitated, before finally explaining, “That’s the only category we don’t understand. The rest were how She - the Almighty - divided the world when She paused everything and put the universe in voids, about a year ago. Each of those things had its own void, as far as we know. Except…”

“You.”

They looked at Crowley, wide-eyed. “Me?”

The demon had turned the list back to them and was staring at it, reading it for a moment before nodding. “Yes. You and your cottage are not from Earth, don't you think angel?” Aziraphale nodded, watching Crowley warily, like he wasn’t sure where he was going but knew he wouldn’t like it. “So, therefore, you wouldn’t have been with Earth in its void, you would have had your own. Christ and Adam told me all about the things they found in the voids, and each of the things on this list lines up with that. Except this - the ‘Forest & Reuel’. You’re missing your void, and this void is missing its contents.”

“So that means…”

Crowley smiled for the first time since getting a hold of the list and held out a hand. “Hello, Reuel.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! They figured out Reuel's name... it was getting pretty tiresome just saying "they" and "the stranger" over and over (not that I have a problem using 'they', just when used exclusively for one character as well as for other things it can be pretty vague and confusing). Thanks for reading, comments and kudos are always appreciated!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late chapter, I got caught up in work and then immediately afterward in vacation. This is a short chapter, but be prepared for a cliffhanger! Don't worry, everything will be explained soon enough ; )
> 
> Enjoy!

“ _ What _ ? Out of the question.”

Crowley hissed, dropping his head back against the bookshelf he was leaning against. Huddled up just a few inches away from him stood Aziraphale, arms crossed and blue eyes like the Atlantic in hurricane season, and that wasn’t a sight he wanted to see.

“Think about it, angel. We don’t really have any other option, do we.”

It wasn’t a question, but Aziraphale huffed and pulled a face anyway as he thought. Inevitably drawing up blank, he frowned deeper. “Maybe so, but we don’t have to bring the children into this-”

“A,” Crowley held up a finger, looking down at Aziraphale under his skewed sunglasses, “Christ isn’t a child. She’s the Almighty - or the closest thing there is to Her now - and I’ll be damned -  _ further damned _ \- if we don’t run to her to set aside all of our supernatural problems from now on, you hear me?”

“But Adam-”

“Adam is perfectly capable. He faced off the devil, for Earth’s sake, angel,  _ and our bosses _ . We can ask him about the weird void he accidentally dropped onto Earth.”

The blond didn’t refute that point, just pinched his face some more and avoided Crowley’s gaze, his eyes flickering across the bookshelf like slotted somewhere among the stacks he would find it - “The Ultimate Manual to Dealing with Children Gods and God-Like Beings” - somewhere in the ‘how-to’ section Crowley was leaning against. Finally, after having finally determined that, if such a book existed, he did not have it in stock, he sighed. “Still. It seems like a bit much, ghosting the poor boy’s party and then calling on him - not to mention Christ and Anathema - like this.”

“Think about it this way,” Crowley consoled him, smiling softly as the demon’s nervous gaze finally met his, “first, we just need to get the kids to fix up a little mess of theirs. Then we can give them a second, mini birthday party.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows rose and his eyes brightened considerably. “Oh, true - we can have cake!”

Crowley snorted but nodded along. “Mhm, definitely. Cake, biscuits, presents, the lot of it.”

“I suppose it would be best,” Aziraphale hesitated, glancing around furtively to the figure still sitting like a statue on their couch as if to see if they’d moved after nearly an hour of paralysis. “Christ’s memories are all in, so she will at least be able to tell us who Reuel and their Forest are.”

“Exactly. So, I take it you’ve come around?” Crowley raised an eyebrow and held tight onto his smirk, lest it escape too early.

But there was no need, for a moment later Aziraphale nodded and smiled at him. “Yeah, I always do, don’t I?”

“You do,” his husband agreed, dropping the leash on his lips and letting them smirk as he gave his angel a quick peck and then led him back to the back room where Reuel sat prone on the couch. 

The being (for really, after the whole void revelation neither Crowley nor Aziraphale had any idea what Reuel was, aside from that they  _ were _ ), had taken the list from Crowley as soon as the demon had greeted them by name, snatching it really, to stare at it for a moment. And then another moment. And another… and then however many moments made up the approximate hour that it took for Crowley and Aziraphale to deliberate, for them to come up with and shoot down a handful of plans, for Crowley to come with a plan he decided was The Plan, and then for Crowley to convince Aziraphale of The Plan. They sat there still, slightly hunched with their hands hanging between their legs and gripping the paper. If they had been human, or even an angel or demon who’d spent enough time on Earth, they would have gotten bored or achy or something else and moved by that point. But they were none of those things, so even as Aziraphale made for the phone and Crowley came back and sat down on the opposite side of the couch they didn’t shift a hair.

Crowley cleared his throat. “Reuel?”

Reuel started, head shooting up from the list to bounce around the room before finally settling on Crowley. “Erm, sorry…” they shook their head as if to clear the dust, “what is it?”

Across the room, Aziraphale stood at his antique phone and had just (somehow) managed to dial up Anathema, who picked up quickly, if Aziraphale’s cheerful greeting of “Hello, dear girl!” and quick apology for missing Adam’s birthday celebration was anything to go by. Listening to this, Crowley jabbed a thumb at the former angel, directing Reuel’s gaze that way.

“We think we might know what to do about your current predicament.”

Reuel’s face brightened with a small smile. “My memory? You can fix it?”

“Uh, well,” Crowley dropped his hand and grimaced, glancing away from Reuel’s hopeful gaze (hey, he was a demon, he wasn’t  _ supposed _ to feel uncomfortable around that kind of look!). “Maybe? That’s what we’re aiming for, at least. I couldn’t tell you how.”

Reuel’s brow furrowed, and their spine slumped. “What… why couldn’t you?”

“We still don’t know why you can’t remember anything,” Crowley explained, feeling somewhat guilty, even though he’d had little part to play in Reuel’s whole misfortune (unless you counted his willingness to let two children put the universe back together, the very two children who, surprise surprise, had made the mistake resulting in Reuel sitting on their couch). “But,” he added, as Reuel’s face fell right back down again, “we think we know who might. And if not, we’re also calling a witch here who may be able to do a thing or two to help.”

“Oh, okay.”

Crowley watched Reuel closely, but the being seemed to have relaxed, assured in the notion that something was being done. Seeing them finally relaxed for the first time, Crowley didn’t want to ask his next question, but as Aziraphale pattered on about their memory-loss situation (probably explaining it to the witch) in the back of his hearing the demon knew it was probably for the best. So, pushing his sunglasses more securely onto his face, he straightened.

“So, Reuel, have you been able to remember anything else?”

Reuel shrugged and once again their eyes unfocused as if the world before them was falling away in favor of a close-up shot of whatever cut off or shrouded part of their mind contained their memories. Mouth twisting, they seemed to be focusing deeply, and blinking Crowley didn’t dare move a muscle.

“Nothing concrete… my name is definitely Reuel. I remember someone- I remember her saying it.”

“Her? A woman?”

Reuel nodded. “I think so. I lived with her. She- I think she wrote the list. The messy handwriting looks like her’s, and I… I think I can remember seeing her writing it. It’s blurry, though, like it’s only half real. Like a human’s dream.”

_ But that would mean…  _ Crowley stilled, absorbing the information and staring at the list. The list… something about it always continued to snag his attention, to pull his thoughts back towards it like a planet’s gravity well pulled a comet, or a whirlpool slowly dragged in flotsam. The feeling was uncomfortable (especially considering the fate of the parties analogous to Crowley’s own mind), bringing with it a degree of powerlessness; he could only compare it to a feeling he remembered vaguely from his time in Heaven, or the progression of his thoughts as he started to fall in love with Aziraphale. Yet the list, with its messy and scrawled handwriting, the odd way it seemed to bend space and fit much more text onto a single leaf than should be possible (powerful magic, he knew, yet seemingly used very casually), and the chilling implications of what was included in it, created that feeling and train of thought consistently. So did Reuel. It was very hard not to stare at either of them.

Blinking furiously, the demon tore his gaze from the sheet of paper in their guest’s lap and cleared his throat. Reuel watched him expectantly, and he opened his mouth to reply, “B-”

“Okay, everything’s sorted out!” Aziraphale announced suddenly, the phone clicking back onto its stand as he left it to come stand by Crowley and Reuel on the couch. “Anathema, Adam, and Christ will be here in a few hours. The children,” Aziraphale turned a bit to focus his explanation on Reuel, “were the ones in charge of putting everything back into place after the Almighty, erm…”

The former angel glanced at Crowley with a quirked eyebrow, gaze questioning. Shrugging, Crowley obliged. “Hit the restart button,” he said (definitely not what he was thinking, which was:  _ Bloody gave up and metaphorically killed Herself _ ). 

“Yes, exactly,” Aziraphale nodded, smiling awkwardly at Reuel. “They were the ones who took care of emptying all the voids, including yours. We hope that they’ll know what happened to you and will be able to fix it.”

“Okay,” Reuel nodded, though their face was scrunched in a curious expression, one that Crowley was beginning to associate with them reaching for their severed and far-flung memories. When they didn’t continue, seemingly lost in that search, Aziraphale turned his attention to Crowley.

The demon said it for him. “We should probably figure out how to explain to the kid why we ditched his party.”

“I wouldn’t say we ditched it…” Aziraphale’s mouth pursed defensively, and Crowley grinned as, per usual, the wall fell and the former angel just sighed and nodded. “I suppose.”

* * *

Crowley had only been asleep an hour or two (Aziraphale’s fault; as much as he loved his husband they both knew he spent  _ way _ too much time dithering over things as trivial as birthday presents) when the door jumped out of its frame, shaking with existential dread as a child’s fists began assaulting it unprecedentedly. From his position curled up in a ball in Aziraphale’s chair, Crowley jumped into action right out of his sleep (a sight that certainly shocked Aziraphale more than the banging on the door), the yellows of his eyes blowing up as he glared daggers at the door.

Before he could do anything, however, the assault suddenly lapsed, and then the locked door was swinging open of its own accord, Christ’s compelling gaze imploring it to open up for her and stay open as Adam burst in, followed by the young God and a very exasperated looking Anathema.

“Crowley! Zira!” The boy was somehow even more lively as a twelve-year-old, and aided by longer legs (and maybe a bit of his own imagination) Adam almost seemed to teleport from the door to the backroom, leaving Crowley blinking away sleep and confusion all at once - a bad combination. “Anathema told me why you missed our party, and it’s perfectly alright because you had to help someone and all, but if you can’t use your powers to send us a message then what’s the use of having them?”

“Uh, whot?”

Crowley continued to blink dumbly at Adam, and the boy sighed, crossing his arms.

“Or use a phone. I know Uncle Zira isn’t good with phones, but it wouldn’t have even required a miracle to text us with your phone, Crowley.”

“Adam’s right,” Anathema butted in, running a hand through her hair to straighten it as she leaned against the desk in lieu of a free seat. “It would have been nice to know you picked up your powerful, mysterious entity a little earlier. Just in case, you know.”

“Hey,” Crowley frowned at them, “you’re here now, aren’t you? Just, uh-” he checked his phone, straightening - but only slightly - in the process. It was mid-morning.  _ Huh, I knew we got back late, but Aziraphale must have spent more time on gifts than I thought. _ “Just half a day later. Not quick enough for you?”

“Never,” Adam replied, but he seemed satisfied with the discussion and ended it by turning around and plopping down on the couch.

Again, Crowley blinked, feeling slow.  _ Wasn’t Reuel just- _

“Get it away from me!”

Again, Crowley started, and in an inhuman twist he maneuvered himself around to catch sight of Christ, backed up with her back against a bookshelf, staring ahead of her in horror. A few feet away, expressions dumbstruck, stood Aziraphale and Reuel where they had just emerged from the bookshelves to greet the new arrivals. But their faces were far from pleasant.

Expressions slack - in Aziraphale and Reuel’s case - and angry and terrified - in Christ’s case - all three of them stared at the thing floating between them.

It was a key. Glowing red hot, burning a shape into the air, a shape that matched a burn on the hand Reuel was currently cradling. It pulsed in the air, it’s edges blurring like the ill-defined profile of a blotch of oil or dye in water. Around it, it almost looked like matter was bending, a bit like it did on the list only instead of trying to create more space it was trying to create less. The space between the key and Christ looked almost like it was folding, like it was trying to create a tube down which the key could fall, directing its floating towards the tube’s mouth - right at the heart of Christ.

The girl was also glowing, her corporeal body vibrating with a red hot energy as it reacted to the key. On the non-corporeal plane, Crowley could see her true form fighting with itself, struggling to get away from the key even as their energies pulled towards each other, bending the space between them to get rid of the physical and metaphysical difference.

On her face was complete terror, and her eyes focused on the key with dread.

“ _ Get it away from me _ !”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos all keep me motivated to write.


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder if I'll ever stick to a regular chapter release schedule... oh well. Hope you enjoy, we get some more of pre-Apocolypse Reuel here!

Reuel felt nothing as the two children burst through the bookshop door, not a single prick or throb at the back of their head, not the tingling of a barely grasped memory or the sudden sharpness of a recollection returning. Just… nothing.

Reuel wasn’t sure what they’d been expecting, but it had been something more than nothing. After all, Crowley had said, these were the children who had put them where they’d woken up. These were the children that might know why they couldn’t remember anything. And the girl - the plain blond one, a near-identical twin of Adam and memorable in vision only as that - was supposed to be the Almighty. They remembered little, but the idea of Her (at least, the  _ broad concept _ of an Almighty) they knew and remembered without pain in the same they knew how to walk and speak.

Then their pocket started to burn.

Or rather, not their pocket technically, but the piece of hard and usually cold metal that took the form of a key resting in the pocket on their right thigh, the key that they had shoved there when they’d woken up and since completely forgotten about (and considering the succession of waking-up-with-no-memory, getting-run-over-by-a-car-that-even-they-knew-shouldn’t-be-on-the-road-anymore, and finding-out-they-got-misplaced-according-to-God-Herself’s-list, that is understandable). So it felt like their pocket was starting to burn, and as Reuel met eyes with Christ they also winced and shoved a hand into their pocket to rip out whatever was attempting to sear a hole in their pants.

The girl’s face had been neutral as she’d first approached them, but the second Reuel let go of the key (again, understandably; they felt the red burn get branded into their palm in real-time) and let it float into the air Christ froze, face twisting in horror. With wide eyes Reuel watched as the space between Christ and the key rippled and folded, wrinkling like a tablecloth someone was shoving together. Muscles tense and mouth wide in desperation she back up until she couldn’t back up any longer, her back against a bookshelf, and all she and Reuel could do was watch in shock as the key - though maybe, they thought, it shouldn’t be called a key anymore, as the edges bled and the matter that made it up warped under the force of some indescribable energy/matter/movement/light into something discernibly unkey-like - was pulled ever closer toward her. 

“Get it away from me!” She screamed, voice almost bordering on shrill as the space between them grew short and they started to pull together. “ _ Get it away from me!” _

Reuel did nothing, just stood frozen as the key - a source of a headache before, and a source of a headache at that moment too - glowed brighter and hotter and, despite Christ’s desperate cringe away from it, started to merge with the girl’s outstretched true form. Christ screamed, face screwed up in frustration and panic as she tried to sink impossibly deeper into the bookshelves despite the attraction of her noncorporeal form to the key. For a moment, as the two grew closest, it almost seemed like they merged, Christ freezing as the key touched her heart and their energies began to intertwine. For a moment, Reuel thought they recognized something in her, and as if caught under a crushing flood wave they collapsed onto their knees with a groan as  _ She _ \-  _ El _ \- came rumbling and crashing into their mind once again.

Then, in a flash, it was all over, space snapping jarringly to normal as Crowley tumbled forward, key clasped in his hand while he flew by Christ. The energy/matter/movement/light surrounding and blurring the key disappeared as the demon threw it across the room, and then the entire room stayed frozen.

With a sharp intake of breath, Reuel felt escape them a lonely and strangled sob.

* * *

_ Like droplets of water, she flooded into their mind, memories of her jostling and foaming and crashing into each other, bathing their cheeks in countless drops of salty water all begging for their attention to be fully recollected as they dripped down their chin too fast to be caught. Until… for some reason, the memory of that painting they’d seen in this new life seemed to stay, fell on their tongue and let them soak it up in its salty-sweet entirety. _

_ “Don’t you dare save that picture!” She ordered, eyebrows furrowing in mock anger and made completely ineffectual by the fact that she was hanging upside down from a tree. _

_ “And why not? You look beautiful,” they grinned, and she crossed her arms with a huff. _

_ “I’m hanging from a tree like a lunatic.” _

_ “And you  _ are _ a lunatic, so what’s new?” She glared at them, and they laughed. “Hey, you knew the danger when you decided to climb up there.” _

_ “I was willing to accept the risk of falling on my face, not your incessant urge to capture everything.” _

_ “Well too bad, because I’m doing it anyway,” they replied cheekily, and she huffed but didn’t protest anymore, just dropped her arms to hang limply down next to her hair and grinned at them. They frowned at her clearly sarcastically bared teeth, but she just raised an eyebrow and kept smiling sharply. _

At least this isn’t a photograph, _ they thought, pleased as they sketched out slightly softer lines for her mouth.  _ I don’t have to be completely faithful.

_ The smile he finished was sweet and joyful, and when she saw it she snorted. _

_ “What?” They said. _

_ “Why do you draw me? You’ll be stuck with this face for eternity, is that not enough for you?” _

_ They pursed their lips, studying their sketch. It looked a bit like her, but not close enough. They never got the planes of her face exactly right, could never figure out how to perfectly capture the little imperfections that they loved - never mind her aura, which was just as much her as the body she chose to present as. Turning their gaze to the real, much less smiley, thing, they shrugged. _

_ “Not yet.” _

_ She blinked at them, mouth open and round but voiceless. They just grinned at her and grabbed their drawing supplies, turning to go back to the house where they’d left their paints. _

_ “What, you think I’ll get tired of you if I see a few extra copies of your face each day? Please.”  _

_ She frowned, gaze dropping from theirs. “Eternity is a long time, Reuel.” _

_ “I know. And it will still never be enough.” _

_ She looked up at them with wide eyes, surprise painted across her face. Shaking their head they took her hand and led her inside. _

_ Now, though, she was gone… they remembered her, she washed over them now, filling them, drowning them… For a moment or an eternity, there was nothing else but her memory, nothing but her at all. But still, she was gone…  _

The dam was broken, the water had drained away. They hadn’t realized it had been gone, had forgotten what water was before oxygen and hydrogen - Christ and the key - had collided right in front of them, recreating it for just an instant before breaking apart and dissolving back into nothingness.

* * *

Aziraphale watched as, the moment it seemed like Christ and the key were to merge, Reuel crumpled. It was a split second, barely even that, before Crowley had stopped it all and Christ had returned to herself, shaking and leaning with numb relief against the bookshelf. But the moment after, the moment as the key flew across the room and landed with a clink, lasted for a long, long bubble of eternity.

The key went  _ cli-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-nk _ echoing, echoing, making a light, near cheerful soundtrack to the entire moment as it clattered to the ground.

Reuel sobbed, breathing in a long and drawn out  _ ga-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a _ -sp that made the long ringing song of the key sound like a mere blip until finally, they choked on their own breath, it hitched, and in a sudden gust of air, it was released in the loud and painful cry of a person getting something - an arm, a leg, a soul - ripped out and lost for good.

For a moment the five of them just stood where they were, Crowley’s arm dropped but fingers still spread open to release the key (and reveal a burn); Aziraphale standing frozen, one arm stretched out to reach for Reuel but too far away to do any good, in the middle of the room; Christ shoved flat against the bookshelf, round eyes still staring at the key; Adam half lying down, half sitting on the couch, similarly round eyes on Reuel and Christ; Anathema by the desk, mouth agape. And in their own world, Reuel just sat there, trembling and doubled over where they sat on their knees cradling their head in their hands.

Dropping his hand, Aziraphale finally took a shaky step toward Reuel and leaned down, reaching out to place a hand lightly on their shoulder.

“Reuel, what is it, dear fellow?”

They ignored him, continuing to shake. Their fingers went white as they gripped their head tighter, and Aziraphale grimaced, imagining how it must be throbbing. Leaning closer, the former angel could hear them murmuring something under their breath, muttering something unintelligible and whiny into their knees. Aziraphale swallowed and gripped their shoulder more tightly.

“Reuel, can you look at me, please?”

Again, they didn’t respond.

“Reuel,” Aziraphale let his voice grow a little firmer as, gently, he took their shoulders and slowly turned them his way, forcing them to look at him. The gaze that he met (through a combination of making them sit up straight and bending down to look up at them), however, was empty, hollow. Reuel’s eyes were blown wide but inside there was nothing, like the remains of a popped balloon, or the crater left by a bomb. Aziraphale’s breath hitched, and it was all he could do to keep the shakiness out of his own voice. “Reuel, how is your head?”

To his relief, their mouth opened, moved as if to speak. A little croak came out, but nothing else, so they paused and blinked rapidly for a second to collect themself. Then finally, hushed and breathless, Reuel spoke.

“It hurts.”

“Goodness, um, okay. How much? Here, would you let me help you stand up?”

“A lot, but it’s getting better,” Reuel replied but made no move to stand up or even follow Aziraphale with his gaze as the former angel stood. “I… I remember her now. I remember. Some.” 

“Her?” Aziraphale furrowed his brow, and when Reuel didn’t answer turned to look at Crowley - still across the room - who grimaced and shook his head, nodding at Christ but other than that simply giving off the feeling of saying  _ ‘We’ll talk about it later, angel’ _ . Aziraphale frowned at him, but before he could say anything else Reuel had stood back up, their tear-streaked face directed to Christ.

“What did you do to yourself, El?”

Their voice was soft, almost reedy, still colored by the aftermath of their tears. Christ’s reply, following it, was jarringly sharp. “I’m not El anymore. Call me Christ.”

Reuel gulped, jaw trembling as they stared at her. “You mutilated yourself. How could you?”

Christ looked away, the only sign on her passionless face that Reuel’s sorrow was touching her at all. “It’s not like that. I made myself better. It’s better this way.”

“All I can remember of the world before is you, but I can tell it isn’t better.”

“Exactly, you can’t remember,” Christ looked back at Reuel, and her eyes were cold and piercing, as icy and firm as her voice. “You can’t remember all the angels and people that died. You can’t remember all the plans that failed. You can’t remember all the times I- She messed up.”

“No.” Reuel’s words were like mist, a barely-there-breeze, in comparison. “But I remember how you cried after each and every one.”

“She did. And now I don’t cry anymore.”

“Because you’ve chopped yourself into pieces and hid everything even vaguely emotional in that key!”

Reuel’s voice broke and they stopped talking, slowly lowering the finger they’d raised to jab at the place on the floor where the key still rested. Nervous, Aziraphale looked between them in part shock, part realisation as the pieces started slowly clicking into place.

Like a gong struck the air kept rattling with the sound of Reuel’s desperate, angry voice, and no one dared to break that trance as Christ and Reuel stared at each other. 

No one except Adam, that is.

“Here.”

Aziraphale snatched his gaze away from the staring contest and looked at Adam, who at some point had gotten an ice pack and approached Reuel’s side. Smiling confidently, the antichrist held out the gift, not faltering as Reuel turned and stared at him in bewilderment.

“Take it.” Adam held it closer to Reuel for emphasis. “Put it to your head. It will help with the headache, I think.”

“Oh.” Reuel blinked, gaze flickering between Adam’s face and the ice pack in the boy’s hand. “...thank you.” Hesitantly, they took it, and with a wince pressed the cold pack against their head. Adam grinned wider.

“No problem! No, uh, since your head is getting better, do you think you - or Christ,” he glanced at his friend, who was staring at them warily, “could explain what’s happening here? ‘Cause the rest of us are a little in the dark right now.”

“Oh, um, right,” Reuel nodded, glancing quickly at Christ before looking away again. “I, uh…”

“They’re Reuel, the friend of God,” Christ interrupted, voice stilted. All gazes turned towards her. “They are Her first creation and the only thing equal to Her. Her companion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are kudos are always nice : )


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this chapter is a bit late, but it's a bit long too so I hope that makes up for it! (I feel like I apologize for chapters being late every time, so maybe I should just give up my once a week schedule and go for every other week.) We finish off our round of revelations this week (mostly, I think), and finally the events of Faithful Only He really come into play. On that matter, there is a little spoiler for FOH at the end here (since I haven't written that far in the fic, though it's planned), but as you all know FOH is a tragedy it shouldn't come as a surprise, and I won't go much into detail of the events I have planned for the other fic here; Crowley can get everything else explained to him off-page, and we can just see his reaction to avoid spoilers and restating things. That is all if you're reading FOH; if you're not, I highly suggest it (because of course, I want people to read my stuff XD), but since it's getting more relevant I'll give you a little summary of what's relevant about it in the endnotes.

He’d been making his way across the room to Aziraphale, but at Christ’s words, Crowley froze.

“They are Her first creation and the only thing equal to Her. Her companion.”

_ Equal to Her… _ On the outside, Crowley froze, jaw dropping and the yellows of his eyes blowing up as he (along with everyone else) stared at Christ in shock. On the inside it was like he was a snake caught up in a hurricane and tangled up in a tree, his mind twisting around itself, unsure of what direction it was moving it or what parts were where - even which parts were it and which parts were the branches of the tree (named The-Fact-That-God-Has-An-Equal, if you must know) that had suddenly knocked the wind out of him, only sure that  _ shit, _ every movement hurt and he had absolutely no idea where that tree came from.

On the outside, oblivious to him, Christ kept talking, and the tree shook, its branches scraping against his tender and bruising scales.

“He shouldn’t have been on this plane at all,” she said, sighing and frowning at Reuel as if it was his fault. “I guess Adam and I must have seen the Forest and assumed it belonged to Earth since I hadn’t gotten my memory back at that time. Apologies, the abrupt transition onto the physical plane is probably what damaged your memory. Here.” Reaching forward, Christ gingerly tapped Reuel on the forehead before practically leaping back away. They gasped, stumbling away and into a fall guided by Adam that eventually ended with them sprawled on the couch, staring at Christ in shock.

“Wha-”

“All fixed,” Christ said primly. “You remember everything now?”

“I…” Reuel shook their head, blinking rapidly. But it didn’t look like they had a headache, and in only a few moments they were nodded, face slack. “...yeah. Yes.” 

“Good. Reuel’s job,” Christ explained, turning her attention to glance at Crowley on his side of the room and then turn to face Aziraphale and Anathema, “is to hold that key. It has immense power, and I can’t exactly just destroy a piece of God, so they need to make sure it doesn’t get into the wrong hands and,  _ most importantly, _ stays away from me. I can’t fault them for failing thus far, seeing as they didn’t remember the mission-”

“Now hang on a second,” Reuel interrupted her, surprising them all (except maybe Christ) as they stood up so that they towered over her child's body. “You never even explained this mission to me. You disappeared for a week without a note or a phone call and then just showed up, sounding half-suicidal with some frantic plan that you said would make everything better but which you couldn’t explain to me. You just shoved this key into my hand and then I was in a void! A  _ void _ , El,” their voice broke, and they dropped their gesticulating arms to stare heartbroken at Christ’s cold expression. “ _ Again _ . How could you do that to me, after everything?”

“She did what She had to do. I just played along, piecing back my own memory even more slowly than you did, Reuel. Things were falling apart, everything needed to be put away.”

“Not me, though. Not me. I had been away for thousands of years already.  _ You promised- _ ”

“ _She_ ,” Christ snapped, and took a step away from Reuel, her eyes narrowing. “She promised. She made you, She locked you up, She brought you out, and She put you right back in. She made all those mistakes and went back on all Her words. She was fearful, and confused, and blinded by love. That’s why you went through what you did, that’s why Heaven went to war and the angels Fell, that is why Earth is such a bad place. But I am none of those things, I’m not Her any more. I’m better.”

“You’re steadier and you see more clearly,” Reuel agreed, even as their jaw tightened and they fisted their hands. “But you are loveless.”

Christ regarded him for a moment before her glare softened back to a more usual steely - but relatively calm - gaze. Relaxing, she raised her chin and nodded, now fully collected, the picture of the clear-sighted and unbiased god. Crowley gulped and fought the instinct to inch away from the not-girl.

“Yes. All of my… frivolous emotions are in that key.”

Reuel raised an eyebrow, though beneath the skeptical guise Crowley could see the unease growing in their clenched teeth. “And if I let them out? Or let the key do what it wants and merge with you?”

“You won’t,” Christ said, and as she blinked Crowley felt the slight tingle of energy rippling away from the point of a miracle. “I didn’t think it would come to this, She wanted it open, but I’ve locked it. You’ll need my permission from now on to let loose what’s bound to that key.”

“And if I destroy it?”

The room stilled, and Crowley was sure that he wasn’t the only one whose breath caught at Reuel’s proposition. Destroying the key would be tantamount to destroying  _ God Herself, _ or at least a part of Her. Already, Crowley’s head hurt contemplating what She had done to create Christ (not just wiped Her memory and changed forms, but split Herself into pieces!). He would need to be  _ much _ less sober to be able to process anything else.

That clearly didn’t apply to everybody though, because before Christ could answer (in a voice that, judging from the expression on her face, would have been as nervous and angry as she could get, given her particular state) Aziraphale stepped forward and put a hand on Reuel’s shoulder, forcing them to relax with a squeeze.

“You can’t, Reuel. It’s a piece of the Almighty, not even Christ can destroy it.”

“Right,” from behind him Anathema nodded, looking thoughtful behind her glasses. “If anyone could she would have done so already, if that recent display was anything to judge by.”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Christ nodded, voice stilted as she studied Reuel.

“She can do anything,” Reuel insisted, refusing to deflate or look away from Christ even as Azirapahale gently tried to urge them backward and away from her. “She has nearly all of the Almighty’s power. Why won’t you destroy it?”

Christ shrugged, her entire posture giving off an air of forced nonchalance. “I can’t destroy it. Not without repercussions.”

“Would you care to tell us what those ‘repercussions’ might be?” Reuel pushed.

“No.”

Reuel pursed their lips but could do nothing as Christ turned her back to them and started walking out the door. “I’ll wait for you guys in the car,” she said, presumably to Adam and Anathema as the bell above the bookshop door jingled and she became nothing more than an empty presence hovering where she’d earlier been standing.

“Well, uh,” Adam grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, “that was…”

“Very significant,” Anathema finished, pushing her glasses up her nose and watching Christ’s progression across the street through the shop’s old warped windows.

“Yeah,” Adam nodded and flopped back down onto the couch. “I feel like something bigger should’ve changed, though.”

Crowley gaped at him, incredulous. “ _ That _ wasn’t big enough for you?”

The antichrist just shrugged and didn’t respond as the demon shook his head, aghast. Thoroughly shaken, Crowley finally finished making his way towards Aziraphale to lean his head on the former angel’s shoulder. Aziraphale sighed heavily, and wishing to just forget for a moment all of the insanity of the past few minutes Crowley pressed his nose into his husband’s neck and hummed in pleasure as he felt him rub his back.

“I think,” Aziraphale said over Crowley’s head, “it may be time for a change of subject. Reuel, are you alright my dear fellow?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“Good to hear.” Crowley felt Aziraphale’s neck shift as he nodded assuringly. “Then let’s-”

“Drink copious amounts of alcohol,” Crowley interrupted, pulling away from Aziraphale’s warmth just enough to be heard by everyone in the room. “Right now, without hesitation.”

“Seriously, Crowley,” he heard Anathema scold him, “at least wait for Adam and me to leave.”

The demon shrugged, smirking into Aziraphale’s neck and tilting his head just enough that he thought Anathema might be able to glimpse the edge of his expression, or enough to get the gist at least.

“She’s right, dearest,” Aziraphale chuckled, “wait a bit?”

“Nah,” he shook his head, looking pointedly at Reuel before waving lazily at Adam. “See ya, kid,” he said, then disappeared out of the backroom to hunt for wine.

* * *

“Wait wait wait, ssso you,” Crowley jabbed a wobbly, drunken figure at Reuel, “have been with Her thiss  _ whole _ time? What, you, you, you two, have been just hanging out?”

Reuel shook their head emphatically, though the movement was also shaky as they themselves made it slouched back on the couch, only their chin visible as their head hung down off the back of the furniture. “No no, I’ve- uh, I mean, yes? Yes. We hung out a lot. Watched tv.  _ All of it. _ All of it, we did, everything, which is, ah, is a  _ lot _ . But uh, no. I gave advice, I kept Her in control, I was a, uh, an…” they trailed off, their face invisible but their tone turning up questioningly as they searched for the right word.

“Advised,” Aziraphale offered, “you were an  _ advisor _ .”

“Yep, yeah, advisor, that’s it,” Reuel’s chin bobbed as they nodded and swung a finger around in the air, like they wanted to point it at Aziraphale but weren’t entirely sure where the man was so just figured they’d cover all their bases and point everywhere. “I advised Her. And also watched tv.”

From his perch, which had started as sharing the couch with Reuel, then moved to the arm of Aziraphale’s chair, and now was firmly in Aziraphale’s lap, Crowley snorted and nearly spilled his wine over the former angel’s legs (not that Aziraphale noticed as he poured himself another glass shakily). “Bloody terrible job you did there. What’d you say, ‘Oh, s’ those angels over there? They’re having a bit of a ssquabble, how about you pick a sside and tosssss them into a boiling pool of sssulfur? That should, do the trick and make peace, eh?’”

“Noooo,” Reuel shook their head again, this time letting themselves slide halfway down the couch so their face was once again visible to stare wide-eyed at Crowley, who was scowling into his wine. “I wasn’t there then! All Her, I promise, I, I swear it. I didn’t leave the void ‘til after Eve, and, uh, oh what’s his name… Adam!”

“Wait, but…” Aziraphale furrowed his brow, “you said… what was all that about us being married? Before?”

In his arms Crowley stiffened and, though drunk, his gaze immediately sharpened on Reuel. “Yeah, fill us in on that now that your brain is back.”

“Huh, my brain was always here…” Reuel mumbled, tilting their head to the side in confusion before Crowley frowned sharply and waved for them to continue. “Uh, yes, right. She told me. Filled me in on everything, lots of stories, lots of pictures… s’ how I drew those sketches. From what She told me. I wasn’t there to see them, though.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, “that’s sad.”

Reuel nodded somberly.

“Wait,” Crowley leaned forward a little too much, eyes narrowing in suspicion, then almost fell over and was only saved by Aziraphale’s quick reaction and a quick miracle to keep them both from getting drenched in wine. Reuel watched, smirking, until Crowley fixed them with a burning yellow-eyed stare of the intensity it only got when the demon a) was enraged on about Armageddon-level madness, b) saw Aziraphale wear anything more revealing than his customary 108329358 layers, or c) was incredibly, and this usually took more bottles than it felt like it should, drunk. (Not that Reuel knew this, or could distinguish between the various possible causes.) “How,” Crowley continued after finally, somewhat, gathering himself, “did you recognize me then?”

“I did?”

“You ssaid you did. I’ve never ssseen you, at least, not since we all went-” and Crowley raised his hand here a bit too high above his head for the human shoulder to accommodate and let it fall dramatically downward in illustration of his point “sssplat, right down into Hell, and forgot everything.”

“I…” Reuel furrowed their brow, again looking confused as they tried to dredge up their recently procured memories that also happened to have been immediately afterward hampered by alcohol. “No. I never saw you before.”

“Then why did you recognize me?” Crowley narrowed his eyes almost comically. “You didn’t ssspy us down Below, did you?”

Reuel shook their head slowly, their mind clearly on other things. “No…” they looked at Crowley, studying him for a moment, before suddenly their wine-flushed face went pale and they stopped talking, mouth left open in a little surprised  _ o _ .

“What?” Crowley snapped, feeling edgy even as Aziraphale tightened his grip around him in comfort.

“I saw…” Reuel said slowly, looking careful not to slur, “I saw someone like you. They came and saw me in the void.”

“Sss- someone like me? What does that-”

“They had blue eyes and six wings. Otherwise, they were identical.”

Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley responded, just sat there, staring at Reuel, who fidgeted in their seat once their shock was broken.

When Crowley spoke his voice was raspy but no longer slurred, and he stood up straight from Aziraphale’s lap without stumbling and put down his full wine glass. “That’s not possible. You were just in shock, and now you’re drunk.”

“No,” Reuel shook their head, gaze transfixed to the ground at the demon’s feet, “no, this is true, Crowley.”

“It’s not possible. Angels don’t look alike.”

“You two did.”

“ _ And what on Earth is that supposed to mean?!” _ Crowley snarled, startling both Aziraphale and Reuel, though the latter didn’t dare look up from the ground to Crowley’s eyes, which were burning again but for a different reason.

“I, I didn’t know them. I watched most of you after the Fall, Crowley, so I could learn about who you were, after at least. But they, the angel that visited me, they died right after the Fall. They didn’t get to see history, or Earth, which are the only things I was  _ around _ to see. So I don’t know them as I knew of you two. I don’t think you want to know them either.”

“I think I do,” Crowley retorted through gritted teeth, one hand clenched, the other only kept from fisting by Aziraphale’s calm, cool fingers slipping between his own.

Finally, Reuel dared to meet Crowley’s gaze. “There is a reason She made you all forget what happened before the Fall.”

The demon didn’t back down, just met Reuel’s gaze with a yellow, fiery fury. “I remember angels dying. I remember the feeling of Lucifer Falling. I remember the pain. If I can remember that I deserve to remember this, whatever it is.”

“That pain is easier to bear, trust me.”

“I’ve never been one for trust.”

Reuel’s face softened, eyes sad. “She says you were then. You just happened to trust the wrong people. But so many found themselves trusting the morningstar and his brother, you as their brother stood no chance.”

Crowley stiffened; Aziraphale’s hand tightened around his. “I wasn’t a seraph, I only have two wings. Lucifer was never my brother.”

“Ye,s he was, because he was the brother of your twin. That’s who I mistook you for. I thought you were Abdiel when I first saw you, the archangel of faith, the second leader of the rebellion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so Abdiel's name has finally fully appeared! The story behind this is all told in another fic in this series, Faithful Only He, which is about Abdiel's character arc, the first marriage of Az and Crowley, and what lead to the Fall from Heaven. If you have no time or intention to read the other fic, Abdiel is basically the youngest of the archangels (I recognize in this fic Lucifer, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, and Abdiel as original archangels, "born" in that order), the archangel of faith. He is loosely inspired and based on Milton's Abdiel who plays a small part in Paradise Lost (this poem is also where the title of the fic comes from). Abdiel is created with too many split impulses and contradictory character traits by the Almighty, so She splits him into two angels: the Archangel Abdiel and the Power Kadmiel (pre-Fall Crowley). That's how I figured an angel could have a twin, and the two have a pretty close bond and Abdiel especially feels very dependent on his more confident brother. Kadmiel, after getting involved with Lucifer's group in the rebellion, falls. Abdiel Falls right after him and then is killed immediately after in Hell. And that should be enough for you to follow along with the story (though if you comment with any questions I'll be sure to answer them, as again I am way ahead of the fic I've posted already here). I definitely encourage anyone who hasn't to read FOH, though, as it is and has been one of my favorite stories to write :)
> 
> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! Comments and kudos are always appreciated!


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooow, it has been a long time since I posted on this work, and so much has happened! As I said on my other work, school and other activities have kept me incredibly busy so I sadly have not had much time to write - even my novel draft, my little baby, has mostly been set aside. However, I will not abandon this fic! It will probably take me a long time and I can't guarantee any kind of update schedule before summer, but I love this story too much to abandon it. It's written in my head already anyway, so no going back! 
> 
> Before I say anything else I don't think I can go on without acknowledging all the good things that happened this weekend--at least in my book. A) Biden won the US presidency!!! Whatever your politics (if you live in America or care about America), I'm sure you can agree that having the election over is a relief. For me getting Trump out (probably more than getting Biden in) is just incredible, I almost can't believe it, and it'll certainly make my life and work much much easier. B) Kamala Harris! Whatever you think of her, she is such a nice person and it's nice to have a woman up there who also has to tell people how to pronounce her name, like me. C) Just rumors, not putting any stock in it yet, but Putin maayyyyyy be resigning :DDD. D) Any Supernatural fan will probably still be grinning at random moments, I am at least, since the end of the last episode. I just saw it today so it's top of my mind, especially since I NEVER thought they would actually get there, and let's just say if Cas chooses this moment not to come back from the dead well then someone needs to get the hellfire/holy water out. E) It was my bday, so I ate more cake and ice cream than is probably appropriate for a human. 
> 
> Anyway, enough with my rant, just can't help screaming all the good things that have happened in the past few days after the absolute Bentley-on-fire 2020 has been. This chapter is a lot of reflection and full of my favorite thing, pre-fall baby archangel siblings. There is also a lot of throwback to Faithful Only He, the other ongoing work in this series. You don't have to have read it to understand, and unless you're super perceptive and like making logical leaps then there shouldn't be any spoilers for FOH, even though this chapter reflects on the events of that story. The action will pick up next chapter though (or maybe in two chapters, depends on how emotional our favorite snake gets)!
> 
> Now, before I make this longer than the chapter itself, I'll stop talking. Enjoy! :D

In all the films this was when his memory would have come rushing back. When the vessel storing his past life would burst like an aneurysm and he’d be momentarily immobilized by a crushing headache that would disappear without a trace of pain seconds later, leaving him just with the sudden clarity of  _ oh, so that’s who I was, cool _ , to be used like a shiny new phone with a slightly better camera and an awkward new interface that he would quickly get used to. That’s actually how it had happened for Reuel, kind of; Christ appeared and with a snap of her fingers (or, well, a tap on the forehead) all was well, Reuel was back. It felt like it should have been the same for Crowley, and so almost unconsciously the three of them paused and waited, preparing themselves for the moment when new and restored Crowley-but-with-his-angel-memories would appear.

Of course nothing happened. Because that’s how Aziraphale and his lives worked (and because maybe, just maybe, God-given amnesia was a little stronger than that). Instead, Crowley just blinked at Reuel with wide yellow eyes. “ _ Whot _ .”

Reuel cringed, but didn’t look away or change the subject. Instead, their wine glass quickly filled back up, and soon two-thirds of the alcohol they’d consumed had returned to its bottles and Aziraphale was nudging him gently. “Better sober up for this one, dearest. This is too serious to take in drunk.”

“I’d say that’s exactly why I  _ shouldn’t _ sober up,” the demon muttered, but per usual did as he was told. Smacking his lips he returned his gaze back to the god-like being, this time with an edge more bite. “Explain.” 

“Um, well-”

“And  _ nothing _ ,” Crowley hissed, “cryptic. Sssay it straight.”

“Right then,” Reuel sighed, and they put down their wine glass with a dark look in their eyes. “You’re not going to like it.”

“I guessed that bit, yeah. Get on with it.”

They nodded, exhaling an unnecessary breath. “You were created as the archangel Abdiel, the youngest of her first children. First came Lucifer, then Michael, Uriel, and Gabriel. Then, after a while, a bit of time after Luci was born but not too long before the Silver City and the rest of the Host came into being, you. But, there was something wrong.”

* * *

Aziraphale cried while Reuel told their story - largely Crowley’s story, but also, later on, theirs together. He wouldn’t deny it. He didn’t consider himself much of a crier, but how could he not? It was the kind of tragic story that shouldn’t have been theirs, that only belonged tucked away on his bookshelves to be pulled out for tearful entertainment. It didn’t seem real, especially as they listened without a moment of deja vu or the sparking of a single memory. Yet, there nestled among the outlandish story of a burning Silver City and huge wedding celebrations and turncoat angels, were the familiar details that rooted the entire story in reality. Her, loving and spacey and there less and less so as time went on. Crowley - or Kadmiel, as he’d been known - spending his days creating the stars and then returning home to sneak kisses in the garden with Aziraphale. And of course, Lucifer rebelling, and his brother striking him down. All of it was woven into the story, reminding them that it was, in fact, real. Even if it didn’t feel like it. So Aziraphale cried, because it was true, and none of it felt like it should be.

Except the ending, to which Crowley straightened and said, “I felt that.”

Both Aziraphale and Reuel looked at him, jaws slack.

“What do you mean, you felt it?” Reuel spoke slowly, voice reined in by caution. “Abdiel died-”

“Right after the Fall. I remember the Fall, and everything that happened after.” Crowley spoke in monotone, and it was as if his sunglasses were darker as neither being beside him could see his eyes (in all likelihood they probably were; Crowley didn’t cry or move a muscle as Reuel spoke, but Aziraphale knew his demon, and he wasn’t that strong). “I remember pulling someone out, and not understanding why, only knowing that I had to pull them out if I wanted the pain to stop, because I could feel their pain, and it was unbearable. I don’t remember anything about them, just that I didn’t dare let go of them. But then, suddenly, they were gone, and so was the pain I felt in them. I chalked it up to hallucinations since. That, and when I felt the connection reappear the day Aziraphale’s bookshop open, just to fall away again in a few minutes - no pun intended.”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale stared at the demon. “I remember that day. You came to bring me chocolates, but suddenly you collapsed. You insisted you were alright, but I could tell something was off for the rest of the day.”

Reuel hummed softly, thinking. “I’m not sure about that incident. That sounds like Abdiel reappeared. El probably did that, unable to save him but wanting to get him out of Hell for his last moments. She can manipulate time so it wouldn’t have been difficult for her.” They smiled softly, but their words came out low and heavy, weighed down by something Aziraphale didn’t have the emotional capacity at the moment to interpret. “He was always her baby.”

That was the only part that felt, to Aziraphale at least, even remotely real. The rest of the story didn’t sink below surface level, and Aziraphale gripped Crowley’s hand and shied away from letting that forgotten past anywhere closer.

After Reuel finished talking they all returned to the house, the house and forest that Reuel was now able to tell them had been where they had lived with Her. For six thousand years, as the Host reorganized after the Fall and did its best to take care of itself and humanity learned to stand on its own two feet She stayed there, wandering the forest or huddled up inside the house with Reuel. The two most powerful beings in the universe (as Reuel unconsciously demonstrated by snapping their fingers, putting Aziraphale and Crowley through the peculiar squeezing sensation of slipping into another plane of existence as the forest was put back into its proper place, carrying the three of them with it), holed up together on their couch.

“What did you do all that time?” Aziraphale asked, incredulous (and most definitely  _ not _ petulantly).

Reuel nodded toward the sketches still hanging on the windowsill, ruffling slightly as if from the rush of switching dimensions as they glowed in the perpetually dawn light (Her favorite time of day, though sometimes they switched it up to evening, Reuel said). They snapped their fingers, and a cabinet previously invisible inside the wall popped out.

“I drew a lot. Forest things. But also things for Her.” They smiled, though again it was as if the edges of their mouth were weighed down by boulders, or something else heavy, since She (and by extension “Them”) was supposed to be able to lift any rock. “She would get so sad, especially in the beginning, right after the Fall. I didn’t understand, so she would show me bits and pieces of her memories and I would draw them. I think it helped her, somewhat.”

For six thousand years they would draw, and Aziraphale found himself biting back more tears at the drawings. Crowley - or Abdiel, Abdiel with a face so much like Crowley’s - was in so many of them.

Most of the drawings were of the fledglings, the archangels who grew up when the universe was young, She had barely dipped Her toe into creation, and nothing existed except them, a smattering of stars, and the Almighty. The sketches seemed to organize themselves from oldest to newest (for, necessarily so, the cabinet was less of a cabinet and more of a bottomless storage void that new better than to be anything but precisely organized to Reuel’s wishes), so Reuel pulled them out as such, laying them on the floor for Aziraphale to crouch and hover his fingers over and for Crowley to stare at from above, face blank. The former principality didn’t dare touch them, but he went as close as he could, as if willing himself to hear the laughter of the children in the sketches, feel the happiness and peace in the faces of Crowley and his siblings. Of Lucifer and Michael, closest in age and as close as siblings could be, wrestling between the stars (the winner always pulled the other up and then they stumbled off to sleep together in a knot of feathers and limbs, whether that be a result of Michael winning from her sheer might or Lucifer using one of his other siblings, an asteroid, or a star’s helpful gravity to achieve victory). Of Uriel, then as air-headed as She was, lying on her back and staring up in deep concentration as she swirled stars together into the first messy, irregular galaxies. Of Gabriel (and it was a weird thing for Aziraphale to see, his terrifying former boss as, essentially, a toddler), following Michael and Lucifer around and telling stories and singing songs to the stars when his older siblings inevitably waved him off. Of Abdiel, but really both Crowley and Abdiel then, one angel, being born, a little fledgling with his legs around Her stomach and hiding between his wings and Her robe as Lucifer - looking almost fully grown - stared at him in awe.

Aziraphale stopped at one particular drawing, one colored with faint and pale watercolors. Lucifer glowed, even on the page, his skin and hair and even his eyes and pure white feathers seemingly painted with gold leaf. He almost didn’t seem real, Reuel’s brushstrokes bleeding out of the pencil lines, in contrast with a young Abdiel, riding on his back, colored with colored pencil and shockingly strong (if still light) colors. They wore different faces as the ones he knew them with, but there they were, unquestionably the lightbringer and an amalgam of this angel of faith and his sweet, questioning Crowley. He closed his eyes, not wanting Crowley to see his tears, not wanting to see Crowley with all the lines that had been added to his face.

As Reuel flicked more and more of the sketches out Aziraphale began to search these pictures out, and there were many of them. It seemed She had an endless store of memories She had shown to Reuel to draw, all at first of Her first children, the ones She had watched personally grow up and who had helped Her work out what the universe would become. So many pictures of them sleeping, playing, fighting, embracing, singing, laughing, creating, talking. From none of them could a person have guessed that Michael and Lucifer, attached at the hip, would become bitter enemies. From none of them could a person have guessed that Gabriel, always smiling with his mouth wide open like he had something to say, would have smiled cruelly at Aziraphale’s execution (at least, that was how Crowley described it). In Her memories nothing even seemed wrong with Abdiel, even though clearly something had to have been tearing at the angel at the time, because they hadn’t even become fully grown yet before two of the same face - one with blue eyes, one with gold - began to appear. No, in Her eyes everything about these days was perfect.

Aziraphale tried not to think about the implications of what that meant, for angels like him, humanity, or Reuel.

Crowley barely said a word throughout the entire thing. Just stared at the drawings, walked down them like he walked down art galleries, slow enough to appear to be paying attention but fast enough that anyone who watched him for more than a breath knew he wasn’t giving each piece more than a second of his time. Of course, Aziraphale paid attention. He kept the demon in the corner of his eye (except for when he shut them to block tears, which was, unsurprisingly, very often), watching, waiting for any sort of a reaction. Yet all he did was pick up a piece of paper who’s drawing Aziraphale couldn’t see, scoff at it, and then put it back. “No wonder I Fell,” he said dryly. “Abdiel and I were Lucifer’s from the start.”

“He was not subtle in who his favorite was,” Reuel agreed. “He was very hurt when you left him to build the stars, and was always closer with Abdiel.”

Crowley grunted in agreement, and then the matter was dropped.

More pictures. The archangels grew up and the frames became more crowded. So, so many aerial views of the Silver City in its prime and streetwide panoramas of the angels bustling around. Here is when the pictures started turning sour, too, the shading more dour, and the papers more tearstained (in addition to the crinkles all of the pieces wore from the many, many times they had been handled and clutched to someone’s chest). Fire; a whole array, a year’s worth of drawings just of the City on fire and the wounds the angels sustained. More of the ash it left behind, the singed feathers that littered the streets, the torrential rains Reuel said She brought to put out the blaze but which did nothing to clean the stains from the stone streets. There were happy ones, a series of drawings that looked like sketches of the photograph that had first caught him and Crowley by surprise, drawings, often water colored, of their wedding. Of many other weddings too. But they were nearly drowned out by the sheer number of times She had asked Reuel to draw the same handful of funerals over and over and over and over. For the first time in his life, Aziraphale felt sick. Breathing deeply and moving from leaning on a chair to the wall to the desk he turned his back on the procession and tried to quell his dizziness across the room.

Crowley kept looking, and looking, and looking. He never spoke a word, and Reuel took out more drawings for him. Even when Reuel paused, asking, “Do you want to see the next ones? She was reliving the Fall at this point,” Crowley didn’t answer or move away, and by the continued sound of paper leaving the cabinet Aziraphale guessed the demon had nodded.

The light outside never changed from it’s dawn glow, the shadows never shifted, and Aziraphale's mind spun trying to puzzle out whether time was actually moving or he was just delusional. It must have been moving, though; the papers kept coming.

Eventually the sound stopped, and shakily standing up straight the former principality turned back around to face the other two beings. “Dearest?” he asked Crowley, not looking at him but at the floor, willing himself not to fall over.

“Sorry, angel, we’re going.”

Aziraphale nodded, and with a dazed wave at Reuel (and maybe a thank you, he couldn’t quite remember, only thought that the being had seemed quite worried) they left. Reuel must have told Crowley what to do at some point, because his husband led him deftly through the winding paths of the woods and to a seemingly random spot where a shapeless, colorless, matterless gap seemed to exist. Unquestioningly Aziraphale followed his demon through it and they were home, in the backroom of the bookshop, the gap between plane walls gone the moment his heel settled on the wood floor.

They stood there, hands clasped, the shop silent.

“W- would you like, erm, should I get us some tea?” Aziraphale sputtered, looking down.

Next to him Crowley slowly shook his head. Long and slow he exhaled, then took off his glasses and nestled his head into the hollow of Aziraphale’s shoulder. “No,” he said, and nodding the former principality understood and sat down, relieved at least that the demon, now in his lap, was finally allowing himself to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and sorry again for the wait! Comments and kudos make my day and always are good motivation to keep writing : )

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated and help to motivate me!


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